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 The Early Bird for Oct 29, 2007 Please scroll down to read Headline, then to read that articels full news story; scroll down to that headline's number. Use of these news articles does not reflect official endorsement. Reproduction for private use or gain is subject to original copyright restrictions. Story numbers indicate order of appearance only. This is the single print version. Use the PRINT command in your browser to print the entire Early Bird as one document. (NOTE: This single file format is a long document and can use 50 or more pages of paper.) IRAQ/TURKEY
October 29, 2007 Pg. 1 In The Rugged North Of Iraq, Kurdish Rebels Flout Turkey By Sabrina Tavernise RANIYA, Iraq, Oct. 27 — A low-slung concrete building off a steep mountain road marks the beginning of rebel territory in this remote corner of northern Iraq. The fighters based here, Kurdish militants fighting Turkey, fly their own flag, and despite urgent international calls to curb them, they operate freely, receiving supplies in beat-up pickup trucks less than 10 miles from a government checkpoint. “Our condition is good,” said one fighter, putting a heaping spoonful of sugar into his steaming tea. “How about yours?” A giant face of the rebels’ leader — Abdullah Ocalan, now in a Turkish prison — has been painted on a nearby slope. The rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., is at the center of a crisis between Turkey and Iraq that began when the group’s fighters killed 12 Turkish soldiers on Oct. 21, prompting Turkey, a NATO member, to threaten an invasion. But the P.K.K. continues to operate casually here, in full view of Iraqi authorities. The P.K.K.’s impunity is rooted in the complex web of relationships and ambitions that began with the American-led invasion of Iraq more than four years ago, and has frustrated others with an interest in resolving the crisis — the Turks, Iraqis and the Bush administration. The United States responded to the P.K.K. raid by putting intense pressure on Iraq’s Kurdish leaders who control the northern area where the rebels hide, with a senior State Department official delivering a rare rebuke last week over their “lack of action” in curbing the P.K.K. But even with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice scheduled to visit Istanbul this week, Kurdish political leaders seemed in no hurry to act. An all-out battle is out of the question, they argue, because the rugged terrain makes it impossible to dislodge them. “Closing the camps means war and fighting,” said Azad Jindyany, a senior Kurdish official in Sulaimaniya, a regional capital. “We don’t have the army to do that. We did it in the past, and we failed.” But even logistical flows remain uninterrupted, despite the fact that Iraqi Kurdish leaders have some of the most precise and extensive intelligence networks in the country. As the war has worsened, the United States has come to depend increasingly on the Kurds as partners in running Iraq and as overseers of the one part of the country where some of their original aspirations are actually being met. Iraqi Kurdish officials, for their part, appear to be politely ignoring American calls for action, saying the only serious solution is political, not military. They have taken their own path, allowing the guerrillas to exist on their territory, while at the same time quietly trying to persuade them to stop attacks. “They have allowed the P.K.K. to be up there,” said Mark Parris, a former American ambassador to Turkey who is now at the Brookings Institution. “That couldn’t have happened without their permitting them to be there. That’s their turf. It’s as simple as that.” The situation poses a puzzle to the United States, which badly wants to avert a new front in the war, but finds itself forced to choose between two trusted allies — Turkey, a NATO member whose territory is the transit area for most of its air cargo to Iraq, and the Kurds, their closest partners in Iraq. The United States “is like a man with two wives,” said one Iraqi Kurd in Sulaimaniya. “They quarrel, but he doesn’t want to lose either of them.” Kurds are one of the world’s largest ethnic groups without a state, numbering more than 25 million, spread across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Most live in Turkey, which has curtailed their rights, fearing secession. The P.K.K. wants an autonomous Kurdish area in eastern Turkey, and has repeatedly attacked the Turkish military, and sometimes the civilian population, since the 1980s, in a conflict that has left more than 30,000 dead. In this small town a short drive from the edge of rebel territory, and in Sulaimaniya, 55 miles to the south, it is business as usual. A political party affiliated with the rebel group is open and holding meetings. Pickup trucks zip in and out of the group’s territory, and a government checkpoint a short drive away from the area acts as a friendly tour guide. Its soldiers said they had waved through eight cars of journalists on one day last week. Mala Bakhtyar, a senior member in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party that governs this northeastern region, said there had been no explicit orders from Baghdad to limit the P.K.K., and scoffed at last week’s statement by the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, that Iraq would close the P.K.K.’s offices, saying they had already been shut long ago. “They are guests, but they are making their living by themselves,” Mr. Bakhtyar said. “We don’t support them.” He added: “We don’t agree with them. We don’t like to make a fight with Turkey.” Fayeq Mohamed Goppy, a leader in the Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party, an offshoot of the P.K.K. that still operates freely, argues that Iraqi Kurdish leaders are only paying lip service to wanting the P.K.K. to leave. In reality, the politicians want the separatists around as protection against Sunni Arab extremists, who most Iraqi Kurds believe will move in if the P.K.K. leaves the mountains. Noshirwan Mustafa, a prominent Kurdish leader, said the area was as impenetrable as the mountains in Pakistan where leaders of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are thought to be hiding. “For me, the P.K.K. is better than the Taliban,” he said. Local Kurdish authorities have asked Mr. Goppy to keep a low profile, including canceling a planned conference in Erbil, he said, but otherwise have not limited his activities. “They really don’t want P.K.K. to go,” he said in an interview in his home in Sulaimaniya. If the group is eliminated, the Iraqi Kurdish area “is a really small piece for eating, very easy to swallow.” Mr. Parris argues that the Kurdish leader of northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, ever astute, is holding onto the P.K.K. as a future bargaining chip with Turkey, and will not use it until he absolutely has to. “The single most important piece of negotiating capital may very well be his ability to take care of the P.K.K.,” he said. Mr. Jindyany said local authorities would be happy to get rid of them if they could, calling the situation a sword of Damocles for Iraqi Kurds. Throughout its history in northern Iraq, which dates back to the early 1980s, under an agreement with Mr. Barzani, the P.K.K. has had contentious relations with Iraqi Kurdish leaders. It fought in their civil wars, against Mr. Barzani in 1997, and three years later, against Jalal Talabani, a powerful Kurd who is now the president of Iraq. But since the American invasion in 2003, the political landscape has changed. Iraqi Kurds, emboldened by their secure position, have stopped fighting each other and turned their attentions to other threats like Turkey, a state that has long oppressed its Kurdish population, and Islamic extremism from Baghdad. This area of northern Iraq, which Iraqis call Kurdistan, in some ways eclipsed the P.K.K.’s struggle for an autonomous Kurdish area, Iraqi Kurds said. “They were jealous of our autonomy,” said Goran Kader, a Communist Party leader in Sulaimaniya. “They wanted to do the same thing in Turkey.” At the same time, the P.K.K. was reorganizing, after its leader, Mr. Ocalan, was captured in 1999, and a skilled group of military commanders took over day-to-day operations, said Aliza Marcus, the author of “Blood and Belief: The P.K.K. and the Kurdish Fight for Independence.” The commanders were intent on military escalation, she said, and stepped up attacks, under Mr. Ocalan’s jailhouse orders, in part to remain relevant. “They don’t want to be sidelined,” Ms. Marcus said. “That’s really what’s driven them since 2004,” when attacks resumed after a five-year cease-fire. “They want to say, ‘Turkish Kurds are important too — don’t think the Kurdish problem has been solved.’ ” The ambush of Turkish soldiers on Oct. 21, which took place just a few miles from the Iraqi border, served the purpose perfectly. Public sympathy in Raniya and Sulaimaniya is enormous, and the fighters procure supplies and health care here with ease. Fighters do not go to hospitals, for fear of standing out — the ones from Turkey speak a different Kurdish dialect — but are treated in doctors’ homes, said one former fighter, an Iraqi Kurd who was recruited at age 14. “Their organization is everywhere,” said the fighter, who now works as a police officer for the main political party, after surrendering to local authorities in 2003. “Their members are everywhere.” To Iraqi Kurds, Turkey’s approach is pure politics. There is no military solution to the problem of the P.K.K., they say, because the terrain would never permit victory, and Turkey’s leaders know that. The solution, Mr. Mustafa argued, lies with moderates in Turkey, who must push for an amnesty for the rebels. Militant Kurds, for their part, should take advantage of the political opening in Turkey — 20 Kurdish deputies are now serving in Parliament there. “When you have the door to the Parliament open, why are you going to the caves?” he said. To that aim, talks were held with intermediaries for the P.K.K., Mr. Bakhtyar said. Since then, the rebels have not attacked, and officials and security analysts say that if the quiet holds until Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meets with Ms. Rice on Friday and with President Bush three days later, he might not be pressured into military action. “Soon there will be snow,” Mr. Kader said. “The roads will be blocked. That will be that until next year.” Alain Delaquérière contributed reporting from New York. <A name=e20071029556775.html> Los Angeles Times October 29, 2007 Iranian Minister Accuses U.S. Of Helping Kurdish Rebels In a joint news conference, Turkey's foreign minister disagrees with that statement. Both countries have been fighting guerrillas in northern Iraq. By Ramin Mostaghim and Borzou Daragahi, Special to The Times TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki, at a news conference Sunday with his Turkish counterpart, accused the United States of backing Kurdish separatists waging warfare against Turkey and Iran. Turkey and Iran have been fighting guerrillas with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, and the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or PEJAK, holed up in the mountains of northern Iraq. Turkey has amassed troops near the Iraqi border and threatened to launch an invasion into Iraq's Kurdistan region to root out rebel bases after the killing and capture of Turkish troops in cross-border clashes in recent weeks. On Sunday, a Turkish military operation in eastern Iraq resulted in the deaths of at least 15 militants, according to the private Dogan news agency. "The patience of the Turkish government, parliament and nation has come to its end," Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said at the news conference here. Babacan thanked the Iranian government for its support but said he did not subscribe to the theory that Americans were backing the Kurdish rebels. "The U.S. does not seem to be involved in the PKK insurgence," he told reporters. But Mottaki called PKK, PEJAK and the Mujahedin Khalq organization terrorist groups and suggested the U.S. was supporting them. "We do hope that the U.S. administration will take corrective actions regarding clandestine and behind-the-curtain support for the terrorist activities," he told reporters. "We condemn the terrorist actions of PKK, and we express our heartfelt sympathy toward the Turkish nation and government," he said. Iran accuses the U.S. of backing separatist ethnic and religious groups fighting the government in a bid to pressure Tehran to slow or halt its nuclear research program and end support for militant Islamic groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. The U.S. government, which has labeled the PKK a terrorist group, has urged Turkey to show restraint and continue to work on a diplomatic solution rather than mount an incursion into northern Iraq. "I'm very worried about this," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a Senate Foreign Relations Committee member, on CNN's "Late Edition." "This is a definite hot spot. This could be an expansion of a front of a nightmare situation we're already involved in." Babacan said talks between Washington and the Turkish government in Ankara had been unsuccessful. "We have so far been unable to find a solution in this regard," he said. Economic, military and diplomatic ties between Turkey, a U.S. ally that is secular and a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the Islamic Republic of Iran have blossomed in recent years despite the two countries' radically different relations with Washington. Annual trade between Iran and Turkey exceeds $4 billion. Times staff writer Laura King in Istanbul, Turkey, contributed to this report. <A name=e20071029556737.html> USA Today October 29, 2007 Pg. 12 Turkish Official: U.S. Duty To Quell Rebels Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said Sunday that it is the responsibility of U.S. troops in Iraq to crack down on Kurdish separatist rebels that have been attacking Turkey, but "the United States has not carried out measures that satisfy us." Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said "we are doing things, but I'm not going to talk about them." Fighters in the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, have killed at least 30 Turkish soldiers in two ambushes, the boldest attacks in years. Turkey's parliament has authorized a military move against PKK forces based in Iraq but has not launched an offensive. <A name=e20071029556648.html> New York Times October 29, 2007 Pg. 8 Turkey Attacks Kurdish Rebel Positions By Sebnem Arsu ISTANBUL, Oct. 28 — Turkey’s military on Sunday attacked Kurdish rebels in the southeastern province of Tunceli, a mostly Kurdish area that is a base for the separatist Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or P.K.K. Special forces troops, supported by helicopter gunships, assaulted the rebel positions, according to the state-run Anatolian News Agency. The area was closed to traffic, causing disruptions along local roads, it said. Local news agencies said at least 15 rebels had been killed, though the military declined to confirm that number. The mountainous area where the military operation took place is roughly 400 miles from the border with Iraq, where raids by Iraqi-based P.K.K. rebels have killed at least 42 people in the past month and led to increased tensions between Turkey, Iraq and the United States. While Turkey has so far refrained from beginning a large-scale military incursion into Iraq, operations against the P.K.K. in its southeastern region have been taking place for several weeks, the government has said. On Friday, minor clashes occurred between the army and rebels in Bingol, a town in the southeast. The army said in a statement on Saturday that there were no casualties. The military operations come before a visit to the United States by Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Nov. 5. Many political analysts view his meeting with President Bush as crucial before Turkey decides whether to send forces into Iraq to dismantle the P.K.K. Washington is strongly opposed to any military action by Turkey in northern Iraq. Meanwhile, thousands of protesters throughout Turkey marched against Kurdish militancy on Sunday, calling for an end to a conflict that has taken more than 30,000 lives since the 1980s. Government officials have been calling for calm, saying the P.K.K. did not represent the more than 15 million Kurds in the country. “The 70 million people living in this country are brothers, citizens of this country,” Cemil Cicek, the government spokesman, said Sunday. “We have no separation among us; let’s not give in to provocations.” <A name=e20071029556649.html> New York Times October 29, 2007 Pg. 7 Petraeus Says U.S. Seeking Calm In North By Alissa J. Rubin and James Glanz CAMP SPEICHER, Iraq, Oct. 28 — With tensions on the border between Iraq and Turkey still running high, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American military’s commander in Iraq, indicated Sunday that behind-the-scenes efforts were under way to calm the situation. But he would not talk about them publicly because the situation was volatile. “I am not going to be saying anything about what we may be doing with our longtime NATO ally Turkey, although we clearly are doing things with them,” General Petraeus said. “Nor am I saying what we’re doing with our longtime Iraqi partners,” he added. He made the remarks to a handful of reporters after a change-of-command ceremony he attended at Camp Speicher, the military base five miles northwest of Tikrit that is headquarters for American-led forces in northern Iraq. Turkey and Iraq are at odds because Kurdish guerrillas who have taken refuge in the Qandeel mountains in the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq are using the area as a base for making raids into Turkey. Last week, the guerrillas, part of the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., killed at least 12 Turkish soldiers and kidnapped several. That, with previous raids, led Turkey to threaten to invade northern Iraq to rout the guerrillas. Iraq-Turkey tensions have put the United States in an awkward position because Turkey is an ally and there about 160,000 American troops in Iraq. General Petraeus also made clear that despite reports describing Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as a largely spent force, he viewed it as a continuing threat, though with reduced influence among Sunni Arabs in Baghdad over the past several months. The force is composed largely of Iraqi insurgents and is believed to be foreign-led, according to American intelligence sources, but its ties to Osama bin Laden are unclear at best. “The presence of Al Qaeda in a number of the key neighborhoods that they were in before — Amariya, Adhamiya, Ghazaliya, Dora — has been significantly reduced and its actions degraded,” General Petraeus said. He added that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia “remained a very lethal enemy of Iraq” and that the military must “keep the pressure on very, very intensely.” With Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s activity reduced, General Petraeus said, it has been possible to see other problems more clearly, including criminal activities like extortion. He described the criminal influence in some areas of the capital as almost “a mafia-type presence.” The vulnerability of Sunnis and Shiites who are working to thwart extremism was clear again on Sunday evening when 10 sheiks, three of them Sunni Arabs and the rest Shiites, were kidnapped as they tried to return to Al Salam in eastern Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province. The sheiks had gone to Baghdad to meet with a representative of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. It was unclear who was responsible for the kidnapping, which occurred in Shaab, a poor, predominantly Shiite neighborhood. On a separate matter, General Petraeus seemed to distance himself from any effort to save Sultan Hashim, the defense minister under Saddam Hussein, from a death sentence. At the same time, General Petraeus said the three-man Iraqi presidency council “has a very important role.” The council, made up of President Jalal Talabani and two vice presidents, has yet to ratify the death sentence as required before the execution can be carried out. One result has been to stall Mr. Hashim’s execution. Mr. Talabani opposes the death penalty, but was not a vocal opponent to Mr. Hussein’s execution. Mr. Hashim is being held in American custody, with the agreement that he will be turned over to the Iraqis when they are ready to hang him. However, the Americans seem to be intent on ensuring that all paperwork be completed. General Petraeus said the Americans would hand Mr. Hashim over when they received the completed paperwork, implying that they had not received it. Mr. Hashim, who surrendered to General Petraeus in 2003, has been well treated, the general said Sunday. While in American custody, Mr. Hashim was allowed to visit his family and with an imam, General Petraeus said. Recently, he has become a symbol to Sunni Arabs of the poor treatment of anyone who worked for Mr. Hussein, even those who served the country. The Americans, who are trying to persuade Sunni Arabs to work with them and the Iraqi government to fight Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, want to avoid doing anything that would alienate potential allies. There has been an outcry in defense of Mr. Hashim primarily from Sunni Arabs, especially those who are former members of the security services. Leading the effort has been Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni Arab who is one of Iraq’s two vice presidents. Mr. Hashimi emphasized that Mr. Hashim had had little choice but to obey Saddam Hussein’s orders and that in all respects Mr. Hashim was viewed as a professional soldier, not a defender of Mr. Hussein’s rule. Alissa J. Rubin reported from Baghdad, and James Glanz from Camp Speicher. Qais Mizher contributed from Baghdad. <A name=e20071029556636.html> Washington Post October 29, 2007 Pg. 9 Gunmen In Iraq Kidnap Eleven Tribal Leaders Allied With U.S. By Amit R. Paley, Washington Post Foreign Service BAGHDAD, Oct. 28 -- Eleven tribal leaders who had banded with U.S. troops to fight the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq were kidnapped Sunday morning, the latest in a string of such attacks, fellow tribesmen said. The Shiite and Sunni sheiks, members of the al-Salam Support Council, a group fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq in volatile Diyala province, were taken from their cars by gunmen as they were returning home from a meeting in Baghdad with a government official, the tribesmen said. Hadi al-Anbaki, a spokesman for the mostly Shiite council, said the attack was carried out by the Mahdi Army, a militia controlled by the anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. "This was an ambush," Anbaki said. The kidnapping highlighted the complex and quickly shifting nature of the bloodshed convulsing Iraq, with Shiite and Sunni groups increasingly targeting members of their own sects who align themselves with U.S. forces. Meanwhile, Turkish troops reportedly killed 15 Kurdish separatist guerrillas in southeastern Turkey in the predominantly Kurdish province of Tunceli. The attack took place hundreds of miles from the increasingly tense border with northern Iraq, which Turkey has threatened to cross to root out fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party. Violent attacks continued unabated across Iraq. A suicide car bomber in the northern city of Kirkuk killed eight people and wounded 25 at a bus terminal, police said. The attack occurred on the northern side of Kirkuk, which has a mostly Kurdish population, at a terminal where passengers depart for the Kurdish cities of Irbil and Sulaymaniyah. Also in Kirkuk, armed men kidnapped the managing editor of the Turkmen magazine al-Akhaa, Qasim Muhammad Sari Kahiyah, according to a local journalist. And in Diyala province, a grave containing 15 bodies, mainly of female students, was found in the al-Ehaimer area, northeast of Baqubah, which is under the control of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to local officials. Special correspondent Naseer Nouri and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report. <A name=e20071029556738.html> USA Today October 29, 2007 Pg. 10 Sheiks Snatched After Tribal Talks 3 Shiites, 7 Sunnis opposed al-Qaeda; body found nearby By Associated Press BAGHDAD — Gunmen in Baghdad snatched 10 Sunni and Shiite tribal sheiks from their cars Sunday as they were heading home to Diyala province after talks with the government on fighting al-Qaeda. One was later found shot to death. The bold daylight kidnapping came as the top U.S. commander in Iraq said the threat from the terror network has been "significantly reduced" in the capital. A suicide car bomber, meanwhile, struck a busy commercial area in the oil-rich, northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least eight people and wounding 26, police told the Associated Press. The two cars carrying the sheiks — seven Sunnis and three Shiites — were ambushed in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Shaab at about 3:30 p.m., police officials said. The sheiks were returning to Diyala province after attending a meeting with the Shiite-dominated government's adviser for tribal affairs to discuss coordinating efforts against al-Qaeda in Iraq, police said. Police found the bullet-riddled body of one of the Sunni sheiks, Mishaan Hilan, about 50 yards away from where the ambush took place, police told the AP, adding that the victim was identified after his cellphone was found on him. The attack was the latest to target anti-al-Qaeda tribal leaders and other officials in a bid to intimidate them from joining the U.S.-sponsored grass-roots strategy that the military says has contributed to a recent drop in violence. Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Sunday that the threat from al-Qaeda in several former strongholds in Baghdad has been "significantly reduced." He singled out success in what had been some of the most volatile Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, including Ghazaliyah, Amariyah, Azamiyah and Dora. "Al-Qaeda remains a very dangerous and very lethal enemy of Iraq," he said. "We must maintain contact with them and not allow them to establish sanctuaries or re-establish sanctuaries in places where they were before." Petraeus said the reduced threat from al-Qaeda had given way to non-sectarian crimes — kidnapping, corruption in the oil industry and extortion. "As the terrible extremist threat of al-Qaeda has been reduced somewhat, there is in some Iraqi neighborhoods actually a focus on crime and on extortion that has been ongoing and kidnapping cells and what is almost a mafia-like presence in certain areas," he said. An explosives-laden car also exploded near a market in Baghdad's Shiite district of Kazimiyah, killing at least two civilians and wounding 10, according to local police. The suicide bombing in Kirkuk, 80 miles north of Baghdad, struck a mainly Kurdish area in the city, which has seen a rise in ethnic tensions as Iraq's Kurds try to strengthen their presence there as a prelude to annexing it to their nearby self-rule region. Arab and Turkmen residents dispute the Kurdish claim. Several cars and nearby stores and restaurants were set on fire and black smoke rose from the area as panicked people ran over bloodstained sidewalks. <A name=e20071029556777.html> Los Angeles Times October 29, 2007 Suicide Car Bomb Kills 7 In Iraq The blast at a Kirkuk bus terminal injures 25 and burns shops and cars. Farther south, a group of sheiks is abducted. By Christian Berthelsen, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer BAGHDAD — A suicide car bomber killed seven people and wounded 25 in the disputed northern city of Kirkuk on Sunday, targeting a crowded bus terminal heavily used by travelers to the provinces that form the semiautonomous Kurdistan region, police and witnesses said. Ten shops and 15 cars were set ablaze by the afternoon explosion. "It was a suicide car; the driver detonated himself in front of a civilian crowd next to the bus terminal," said witness Rebowar Mohammad, 32. "I was close to the explosion. There was thick, dark smoke covering the place." He and other witnesses helped rush the injured to a hospital in their cars. Kirkuk lies on the border of the Kurdish region, and Kurds are hoping to annex the city and its oil-rich environs into their territory. But Sunni and Shiite Arabs, including many moved there by the late former President Saddam Hussein to make the region more "Arab," are opposed to annexation. On Saturday night in Kirkuk, police said gunmen kidnapped an editor of Akhaa, a weekly magazine covering Turkmen arts and affairs in Iraq. Just southwest, in the town of Hawija, gunmen killed an Iraqi police officer. Farther south, 11 tribal sheiks and a Shiite Muslim cleric were abducted on their way from Baghdad to their homes near Baqubah in Diyala province. The Sunni and Shiite sheiks, who have formed a grass-roots group to fight the presence of Islamist militants in their region, were returning from a meeting in the U.S.-protected Green Zone, according to Iraqi police. They were intercepted by gunmen in sedans after passing through a checkpoint as they left the capital. A car bomb in Baghdad killed three people and wounded 10 in the Shiite-dominated neighborhood of Kadhimiya, police said. The bodies of five men shot to death were found on the streets of the capital, authorities said. In southern Iraq, the newly elected leader of the election commission in Basra was killed when gunmen stormed his house Saturday night. Times staff writers Usama Redha and Raheem Salman in Baghdad and a special correspondent in Kirkuk contributed to this story. <A name=e20071029556673.html> Norfolk Virginian-Pilot October 29, 2007 In Baghdad's Safe Haven, The Task Is Still Daunting By Louis Hansen, The Virginian-Pilot BAGHDAD--Four military police officers stopped in a small neighborhood of squat buildings. The street was rutted and filled with potholes. Piles of garbage covered the curbs and rose to a waist-high heap in the center of a paved lot. It smelled of rotting fruit and waste. But the weekend night, at least, was clear and pleasant, with a slight breeze rustling the palm trees. The officers, who are supervised by a Virginia National Guard unit, handed out candy to a half-dozen children. Two teenagers pulled up on a motor scooter and joined the gathering. Haider, slight and neatly dressed, teased the children. He is 17 and sells DVDs to troops at a base in the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, a relative haven from the violence in Baghdad. Haider said his father and six brothers live on the other side of the Green Zone walls, in Sadr City, an area controlled by militias mostly loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr . Like many others, he does not give his last name because he fears for his safety. Members of the local militia killed Haider’s mother and younger brother, he said. Haider pointed to a U.S.-issued ID card with a picture of his smooth, boyish face and said if the militia saw it, he would be slain. So he doesn’t stay in Sadr City anymore. He lives as a squatter in this neighborhood, across a highway from a pair of Baghdad landmarks, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Cross Sabres. Haider has adopted Western dress – a navy blue T-shirt with the word “maverick ” on it, cargo pants and sunglasses pushed to the top of his head – and slang. “In Iraq,” he said, “it sucks.” The United States is struggling to quell the turbulence and hand more responsibilities to Iraqis across the country. Here in the Green Zone, about 150 Virginia Guardsmen from the 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team in Staunton face a similar challenge. The unit manages a city within a city, conducting basic duties of a city government as police administrators, planners, attorneys and engineers. The 4.8-square-mile district in west-central Baghdad along the Tigris River is a city of 30,000 residents. The former seat of Saddam Hussein’s government is teeming with members of parliament, the president and prime minister, foreign workers and a constellation of U.S. and allied military leadership. The Virginia Guard unit is based in the Presidential Palace, which is also the headquarters of top commander Army Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Army warrant officers are called “mayor” in small districts. Captains just a few years removed from the Virginia Military Institute answer to “governor.” Their biggest task will be to prepare their responsibilities – and the city – for the Iraqis. Even the leadership acknowledges the frustrations of managing this fairly peaceful part of Baghdad. “The real challenge is getting the Iraqis to see their future,” said Col. Bill Phillips, commanding officer of what’s known as the Joint Area Support Group. “All of their lives they’ve been told what to do. They don’t know what 'right’ looks like.” His unit, which arrived for an expected 10-month deployment in June, also draws and supervises troops from the Air Force and Navy. An active-duty Air Force unit, for example, conducts police operations in the district. It gives the unit a wide lens to spot the problems – and perhaps find some solutions – amid the chaos. Even in the relatively safe sector, security is a constant concern. Private and military security guards demand identification at checkpoints at every building and along roads. Military and civilian workers must keep body armor within a 10-minute walk. Tidy barracks outside the palace are shaded by palm trees and surrounded by stacks of sandbags and large concrete barriers. Duck-and-cover bunkers, protection from random rockets and mortars, dot the grounds. Shortly after the unit arrived, insurgents fired 50 rockets and mortars over the walled zone. First Lt. Amy Staub, a 25-year-old guardsman from Roanoke, was working in her office when the explosives struck. She and her fellow guardsmen did not have time to run to a bomb shelter, so they dived under their desks. A BB-sized fragment struck her in the leg. The injury was not serious, she said – “they put a Band- Aid on me and sent me on my way” – but the incident brought a sense of purpose to the mission. Also, she now keeps her body armor in her office. Phillips can point to a few successes in the five-month stay. The unit has transferred 11 properties from coalition hands to Iraqi ministries. The soldiers repaired a local soccer field and are working on a master plan with Iraqis to rebuild and govern the Green Zone. “How do you prepare for a job like this?” Phillips asked. “You come and do it.” The military police officers who were handing out candy say the effort is far from over. They are airmen from Texas who are here for six months, patrolling in armored Suburbans with a bar of lights on top. After serving in Desert Storm, the team leader, Air Force Staff Sgt. Charlie Gonzales, swore he would never return. But this is his fifth deployment to the region. It’s wearing thin on Gonzales, 38, and his wife and two children. Seeing Iraqi children every day reminds him of what he’s missing at home. Some of the Green Zone neighborhoods he patrols lack clean water and electricity. He’s not sure when it will get better. “You can only try,” he shrugged. Before traveling to Haider’s neighborhood, the patrol stopped at a collection of high-rise apartments that were once an upscale complex of courtyards and markets with views of the Tigris River. The apartments have fallen into disrepair, although they’re still populated by government officials. In a courtyard of dry fountains, a group of 10 Iraqi men relaxed and took turns puffing on a hookah. A short, stocky man beckoned to the soldiers in English, offering a toke of the fragrant warm apple and tobacco mixture. The soldiers politely declined. They watched the towers and occasionally handed out candy to the few children in the courtyard. The man who called out to the soldiers is Dhafer, a 33-year-old known as “Big D” to his friends, he said. The American military liberated his family in Iraq after the first Gulf War. They settled in the United States in 1994. Dhafer worked as a chef and married an American woman. He recently returned to Iraq to work as a translator because he said he wanted to help his native country. “It’s dangerous, but I don’t put it in my mind,” he said. He turned to the soldiers and said, “It’s a dangerous job for them, too.” He wants the United States to give the Iraqi people another two or three years to pull together before the troops leave. “One day,” he said, “this place is going to be beautiful.” After the soldiers walk around and greet a few more children, they return to their vehicles. They pull out their flashlights and peer under their armored Suburbans, looking for planted bombs. They find nothing. When they pull into Haider’s neighborhood, children quickly surround them. They play with the men’s flashlights and gear, devour treats and hold out their hands for more. Haider didn’t ask for anything from the soldiers, except help to clean up the neighborhood. He is saving his money to buy an MP3 player. In another year, he hopes to work for the U.S. military as a translator. When asked what he would be doing in five years, Haider had no answer. <A name=e20071029556780.html> Los Angeles Times October 29, 2007 A Complex Matter Of Duty Fires add to strain on military personnel caught between the commitment to serve their country and the need to be with loved ones in time of need. By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer VALLEY CENTER, Calif. -- Their hilltop home outside this rural community in northern San Diego County was the proudest possession of Billy and Shellie Dial. To the Dials, the home on New Moon Lane represented safety for Shellie and their six daughters and 10 grandchildren while Billy, a Marine master gunnery sergeant, was deployed in Iraq. And it was where the Dials had planned to retire when Billy finishes his current hitch. But in minutes last week, the Witch fire burned the Dials' dream home to the ground. Shellie e-mailed the bad news to her husband in Taqaddum, Iraq, where he is maintenance chief for a helicopter squadron. He is seven weeks into his fourth tour in Iraq. "I told him I needed him home, but if his Marines needed him more, he should stay in Iraq," Shellie Dial said Sunday as she and four of her daughters surveyed the ashes that once were their home. Also on Sunday, California National Guard Sgt. Jerrod Dett remained on duty in San Diego, despite the fact his Running Springs home was destroyed by the Arrowhead fire just hours after his unit was mobilized. He could ask for leave but had not. "We have a mission to do," said Dett, 36, a food preparation specialist. "I want to concentrate on my job: getting food to the soldiers and to the people in the shelters." It was a week of stress and fear for many in San Diego County, as multiple fires destroyed more than 1,580 homes, killed seven people and caused more than $1 billion in damage. The anxiety was magnified for many military families, in which one spouse was at home and the other deployed, often thousands of miles away. Though only a handful of military families ended up losing their homes -- mainly because no on-base housing was destroyed -- the fires spread uncertainty for thousands. Once again, military families were faced with a collision common to their lives, particularly since Sept. 11: the conflict between duty to country and duty to family. Starting on the first day of the fire, Navy spouses, serving as ombudsmen for individual ships, begin firing off e-mails telling each ship's captain and crew of the growing catastrophe. "They were all highly stressed," said Crystal Campbell, whose husband is aboard the Denver, a transport ship. Through years of experience, the Navy has a highly developed system of getting deployed sailors in touch with their families, and also helping families cope with unexpected problems. Some 300 ombudsmen serve San Diego-based ships. Many of the ombudsmen went through the Cedar fire in 2003 when the same notification system was used. "We've had a lot of training," Campbell said. Sarah Schmidt, ombudsman for the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard, arranged through the ship's captain to have each sailor make a three-minute phone call home. "It was mandatory," she said. The Navy found on-base housing for families forced to evacuate their off-base homes. Eighteen families from the Bonhomme Richard were relocated, including two who remained unsure if their Ramona homes had been destroyed. If the families were afraid, some sailors were frantic for news that everything was OK, or at least under control. "When you're out there and something happens," said John Sarmento, whose wife is an officer aboard the Bonhomme, "you want to go home immediately, guns blazing, to help the family get through. But you can't. It's one of those things you have to accept as a Navy spouse." When fire struck inside Camp Pendleton, disrupting training and forcing evacuation of some housing areas, commanders in Iraq ordered officers and senior enlisted personnel to brief their troops and keep them updated. The Horno fire blazed for three days, burning more than 21,000 acres, but no structures were lost on base and all evacuees were back in their homes by the end of the week. Training for troops set to deploy to Iraq resumes today, base officials said. Dett, a chef at the Doubletree Hotel Ontario Airport, got two calls last Monday: one from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department telling him to evacuate, one from the National Guard telling him to meet at the Azusa armory. Knowing that his fiancee and her three children were safe, he hurried to the armory. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Dett spent a year deployed to a Utah munitions installation. He has not sought "compassionate leave" to see his burned-out house and is not sure when his unit, Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 18th Cavalry Regiment, will be demobilized. "It could be weeks," he said. One of the first things Shellie Dial, 53, noticed as she arrived at the site where her home had stood were the once majestic oak trees around the property. Many were gone, others blackened. Just before Billy deployed in September, the family had finished remodeling: new bedrooms, kitchen, carpeting. He was home in 2003 and had helped keep the Cedar fire from destroying the house. "We were almost done," Dial said. "Just three years more and Billy would be retired: We could get in the motor home and travel with the grandkids. I guess plans have a way of not staying the way you want." Her husband is on his way home. After making sure the maintenance needs of his squadron's helicopters were being met, he began the 24-hour trip to Southern California. Most likely, he'll get two weeks leave and then have to return. On Sunday night a week ago, Shellie had been warned by neighbors to evacuate. She grabbed the usual items: the children (only one still living at home), the animals (two dogs, one cat), and the family's photos and important papers. She had time to contact her husband to ask if there was anything else he wanted saved. Yes, he answered, his dress-blue uniforms. "He's a Marine," she said, as though no further explanation was required. <A name=e20071029556727.html> Washington Times October 29, 2007 Pg. B3 Military To Train In Small Towns MARTINSVILLE, VA. -- Residents in south-central Virginia may hear helicopters flying and Marines patrolling on foot in coming days. About 2,000 Marines and sailors are set to conduct realistic urban training exercises over the next two weeks throughout the region. The training is for the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, the landing force for the Norfolk-based Nassau Expeditionary Strike Group. The group is set to deploy overseas in the spring, and the training is designed to expose the Marines to realistic scenarios in an urban area. The exercises started yesterday and will run through Nov. 11 in Martinsville, Danville, Chatham, South Boston, Crewe and Fork Union. The unit will operate out of Fort Pickett in Blackstone. Marines will be trained for a variety of missions that they could be called to perform, including noncombatant evacuation operations and raids. Public affairs officer Capt. Kelly Frushour said residents will be notified about mock raids in their neighborhoods. <A name=e20071029556733.html> USA Today October 29, 2007 Pg. 1 Louisiana Flood Projects Fall Behind Schedule Local officials doubt completion in 2011 By Peter Eisler, USA Today WASHINGTON — Dozens of construction projects launched by the Army Corps of Engineers to protect the New Orleans region from the most catastrophic floods are behind schedule by an average of nearly eight months, an internal audit shows. Local officials are concerned the completion date will have to be pushed back a second time. The audit reviewed 60 ongoing projects to make southern Louisiana's flood protections far more robust than when Hurricane Katrina destroyed the system in 2005. USA TODAY got a copy of the Army Audit Agency's report under the Freedom of Information Act. Nearly 85% of construction contracts for upgrades to the region's flood-control system are behind schedule by an average of about 230 days, the audit says. About 74% of pre-construction design contracts for other improvements also are lagging, by an average of 122 days, or about four months. Local officials worry that the corps now will miss its revised June 2011 deadline for getting the region protected against a 100-year flood — a flood so bad it has only a 1% chance of hitting in any year. The corps pushed back its original January 2010 deadline earlier this year. Congress mandated in June 2006 that projects meet the 100-year-flood test as a response to Katrina, which washed out entire communities and displaced thousands of residents. The flooding exceeded the worst-case scenarios used to design southern Louisiana's protections in the 1950s and '60s. "The corps is telling us they'll be able to meet the deadlines, but I'm not sure we understand exactly how," says Tim Doody of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority, which manages several levee networks in the region. "We think it probably will be another year after 2011." John Meador, deputy director of the corps' rebuilding effort, says the engineers are "still optimistic" about meeting the deadline. "On a daily basis, we're looking at options to ensure that we can stay on target," he says. Meador and the auditors attribute the contracting delays mainly to the long scientific debate over how bad a 100-year flood might be. Engineers needed to know the parameters of that threat before they could develop flood controls capable of protecting against it. The corps finalized its 100-year-flood models two weeks ago. "This whole process really is an unprecedented effort," Meador says, noting that the corps expects to spend nearly $15 billion to rebuild and improve southern Louisiana's flood controls. The design and construction delays were the only bleak spot in an audit that said the corps is doing a good job in writing contracts that protect government interests, hold contractors accountable, and steer substantial work to Louisiana-based firms. The wait for 100-year-flood models has limited the corps' ability to do environmental impact studies and acquire property for expanded levees and flood walls. "The big concerns now are the land issues, purchasing real estate (to expand levees and flood walls)," Doody says. "Owners' rights and property rights make that very complicated." Katrina hit in August 2005 as a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step measurement scale, a magnitude that area flood controls were expected to handle. The storm, however, inflicted moderate to severe damage on nearly 50% of the 350 miles of levees and flood walls in southern Louisiana. It also destroyed 34 of 71 pump stations. About 75% of New Orleans flooded. <A name=e20071029556701.html> Atlanta Journal-Constitution October 29, 2007 Pg. 1 Buddies A Lifeline For GI In Deep Trouble Sergeant from Georgia, accused of murdering an Iraqi civilian, sometimes hears taunts, but not from his platoon mates. By Moni Basu, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Honolulu--The chartered jet skimmed the deep blue Pacific and touched down at Hickam Air Force Base carrying a planeload of soldiers home from 15 weary months at war. It should have been a euphoric moment for Phil Shore--the moment that all soldiers dream of the entire time they are away. But it wasn't. It had been a tough deployment, one that scarred in so many ways. The young warrior from Winder thought about this as the jet sat on the tarmac for an unusually long time. Around him, soldiers were fidgeting. "Sit down!" shouted an officer. "Nobody's going anywhere." The next thing he heard on the intercom was his own name. "Specialist Shore!" The 25-year-old Georgia soldier collected his backpack and walked down what seemed like a never-ending aisle to the front of the plane. "Criminal!" shouted one soldier. "Con Air," said another, referring to the action film featuring a prison plane. Shore felt his face flush red. He was humiliated. Angry. The Army accuses Shore of murdering an Iraqi detainee, but Shore maintains his innocence. It cut deep that American soldiers were so quick to judge one of their own. The jeers stung Shore all the way to Schofield Barracks, home of the 25th Infantry Division. There, the Army tried to place him under a "no-contact order," which meant Shore would have to stay at least 500 feet away from his platoon mates, who returned to Hawaii in early October, a few days ahead of Shore. Shore immediately called his lawyer, Michael Waddington of Augusta. He told him he needed his platoon mates around him. They were his ballast. "I would've been completely alone," Shore says. "Being charged with premeditated murder, that's a hard thing to grab hold of." The platoon had gone through so much, scathed by every facet of the war: injury, stress, wrongdoing and death. They were determined to get through it all together. At Shore's Article 32 hearing last week, his fellow platoon members occupied a row of courtroom seats. They sat still for nine hours listening to testimony that Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, division commander, will consider when deciding within weeks whether to press ahead with a court-martial. At the end of the day, Sgt. Sergio Pena gave Shore a hug: "We're with you, man." Shore's version of events In the early morning hours of June 23, an Iraqi detainee in U.S. custody was shot five times in a rural house near the northern city of Kirkuk. The Army accused Spc. Christopher P. Shore and his platoon leader, Sgt. 1st Class Trey A. Corrales, of killing the unarmed man. In court, Shore's lawyer Waddington painted Corrales as a sadistic sergeant who was out for blood. Waddington argued Corrales shot the detainee and then ordered Shore to finish the man after he was already down on the ground, bleeding profusely. Shore said he pointed his M-4 rifle toward the ground and popped off a couple of rounds, intentionally missing the wounded man. The next day, he and three other soldiers from his platoon reported the incident to their supervisors. The Army, however, doubted Shore's story and after a month of investigations, charged him with premeditated murder. It's likely that prosecutors won't seek the maximum penalty of death, but Shore could still face life in prison. A shocked Shore finished his days in Iraq confined to Forward Operating Base Warrior, where his company was stationed. He was barred from carrying a weapon, but unlike Corrales, he was allowed to stay in his own bunk, among his friends. It's what saved him in the waning days of the deployment, especially after the tragedy that consumed the platoon in August. 10 platoon mates killed Two days after the Article 32 hearing, Shore and his closest buddies gather at Spc. Kenneth "Hoot" Van Houten's apartment in Kapolei, a Honolulu neighborhood 25 minutes from Schofield Barracks. Since the homecoming earlier this month, the routine involves drunken revelry at night, nursing hangovers in the mornings and segue into afternoons watching football. Sometimes they talk about Shore's predicament. Or about Corrales' character. And their adventures in combat. They make the Mr. Spock split-finger Vulcan hand sign and laugh at an inside joke they don't care to explain to outsiders. On this Saturday, Spc. Freddy Ray Meyers plants himself on the couch, a protective helmet hugging his head. A sniper's bullet hit Meyers in May. He made a miraculous recovery at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., but half his skull is missing. He is waiting for surgeons to reconstruct what he lost. Meyers, affectionately called "Fredo," is the first to laugh about his life-threatening injury. It's how he--and everyone else--copes. "If you touch me here, you're touching my brain," he says, exposing Jello-soft skin and a horseshoe scar arching his head. Ohio State is leading Michigan State 24-17 late in the fourth quarter when a postman delivers two plastic foot lockers freshly arrived from Iraq. One contains Shore's belongings. He breaks open the box and gets out his computer's external hard drive. He's anxious to show everyone photographs. There are photos of Meyers, when his head was intact; when he was a burly infantryman without fear. "Hey, look, Fredo," Shore says. "There you are." Shore clicks through hundreds of pictures. So many of the faces are gone now. Almost half of Shore's platoon--10 soldiers--died when a Black Hawk helicopter carrying them back to base crashed on Aug. 22. "I remember they read out all the names," Shore says, recalling that day's confusion. "The names didn't stop." From his locker, he takes out the Velcro name tags of each of the fallen. He gathered them before the Army shipped off the belongings of the dead. "You can process one guy but 10 of your best friends in the whole world?" he says. Shore had planned to room with Cpl. Nathan Hubbard when they got home. "Baby Hubb" joined the Army with his brother Jason after another brother, Jared, a Marine lance corporal, was killed in Ramadi in 2004. Jason, like the celluloid Private Ryan, was the only Hubbard boy who went home to his parents. At the memorial service in Iraq, Shore stood before 10 helmets on upended rifles and 10 pairs of empty boots and fought his way through the two-minute speech he had written about Baby Hubb. "How do you sum up someone in a few minutes?" Shore says. "I cried through the whole thing." Staff Sgt. Jason Paton was to be married in mid-November. Shore bought his ticket to California online the day before the crash. After Paton died, his family promised to forward donations made in his name to help pay for Shore's legal costs. Cpl. Jeremy Bouffard's wife, Amanda, gave birth to son Caleb two weeks before the company left for Iraq in August 2006. "That's all Jeremy talked about--his son," Shore says. "He wanted to see him walk." Shore was one of the few parents in the young platoon. Before he comes home to Winder in November, he plans to visit daughters Cassidy and Kristen, who live with their mother in Florida. He and Bouffard spoke often about being dads. Bouffard's widow and mother flew from western Massachusetts to Hawaii to welcome the platoon back. At first Shore is unsure of Amanda's reaction to talk about her husband. But then he musters the courage to ask: "Have you seen the pictures, Mandy?" "I haven't seen any," she says. The few seconds of silence seem eternal. There really isn't a clear answer at the other end. Do you want to know how your husband died? Or what it felt like to load his coffin onto the C-130 transport plane? Do you want to know what we talked about the last time I saw him? These are questions that don't get asked today. Many of the conversations are punctuated by awkward pauses. No one is sure, really, what to say. It's best to laugh. They imitate "Bouff" quoting movie lines. They recall how he had left an eight-months pregnant Amanda outside to wash the car while he partied with the boys in the kitchen and forgot the task at hand. Bouffard's mother, Paula, helps cook a breakfast of eggs, potatoes and pancakes. "I wanted to meet the guys, they meant so much to my son," she says. Back home, Paula Bouffard has a photo of Shore on her refrigerator. She can't understand how the Army can accuse him of murder. "It's a whole bunch of craziness," she says. "It could've been my son in that same spot. I know what my son was like. I know how I raised him. I know the integrity of the people he hung out with." Uncertain future The people Bouffard's son hung out with are the same ones who keep the "what-ifs" from driving Shore insane. What if he had not been inside that Iraqi house on that summer night? What if the detainee hadn't died two days later from his wounds? What if the deployment had not been extended from 12 to 15 months? "They'd be alive right now," he says about the soldiers killed in the Black Hawk crash. Then, he abruptly cuts off his thoughts. He has to. Shore and the rest of the scout platoon live for the moment. The past is marred and is a reminder that the future could bring more of the same. Update: the story so far *On June 23, a scout platoon in the 25th Infantry Division was called out to assist in a raid near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. An unarmed Iraqi detainee was shot multiple times. He died several days later. *Spc. Christopher P. Shore of Winder says his platoon leader, Sgt. 1st Class Trey A. Corrales, a native of San Antonio, ordered him to "finish" the man after he was already injured and on the ground. Shore says he intentionally missed the man and reported the incident to his supervisors the next day. *On July 18, the Army charged Corrales and Shore with premeditated murder. The Georgia soldier maintains his innocence. *In early October, the 25th ID soldiers came home to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, after a 15-month tour in Iraq. *On Oct. 18, the Army held an Article 32 hearing, the equivalent of a grand jury investigation, for Shore. At that hearing, Shore's lawyers painted Corrales as a sadistic sergeant. Corrales waived rights to his hearing. *What's next: Division commander Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon will look over the Article 32 findings and make a decision in coming weeks on whether Shore and Corrales should face court-martial. <A name=e20071029556708.html> Arizona Daily Star (Tucson) October 29, 2007 Pg. 1 Ft. Huachuca Steps Up Combat Training It's using new mock battlefield to give even intel units improved fighting skills By Aaron Mackey, Arizona Daily Star Facing an evolving battlefield in which Army intelligence soldiers are increasingly in the line of fire, officials are teaching Fort Huachuca troops combat skills that until recently were taught mainly to infantry units. Soldiers at the post 60 miles southeast of Tucson shoot at simulated enemies while riding in a convoy in training that is part of a national push to give non-infantry soldiers warlike experiences they'll need when deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Officials said the soldiers get a close-up look at what combat is like. They hear battlefield sounds, breathe in dust and smoke and experience the dangers of driving down an Iraqi street — complete with a simulated roadside bomb. While the training course on fort-owned land is new — soldiers first began using it last month — the goal of increasing intelligence soldiers' confidence with their weapons began about three years ago, said Lt. Col. Jeff Jennings, commander of the 309th Intelligence Battalion, based at Fort Huachuca. The unit will train on the course this weekend. At the beginning of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, most U.S. Army soldiers not assigned to combat units fired their weapons only during basic training. The next time they touched a weapon was when they deployed. Officials began noticing that once soldiers were deployed, they would either use their weapons incorrectly or fire them accidentally, leading to serious injuries and, in some cases, casualties among comrades, Jennings said, though numbers of how often it's happened aren't available. Senior Army officials called for increased training in weapons handling and shooting so all soldiers, regardless of their roles, could become more confident and learn the proper ways to use their weapons. The goal of the training is similar to the motto held by Marines: "Every Marine is a rifleman," said Tanja Linton, a Fort Huachuca spokeswoman. In past conflicts, intelligence soldiers often were miles behind the front lines, she said. But in Iraq and Afghanistan, there's no such thing as the front lines. The training is crucial for Fort Huachuca soldiers, who in the future could be on Iraqi street corners talking to residents and collecting human intelligence, Linton said. "For military intelligence soldiers, they've got to survive to get that intel back," she said. "It's not just enough to be armed with a laptop — you've got to be able to work that rifle." During the three-mile course, 10 soldiers and two drill instructors ride in the back of heavy-duty military cargo trucks. They're driven through several different scenarios in which they have to distinguish enemies from bystanders. In one situation, officials will tell soldiers on a truck that they've been hit by a roadside bomb. The soldiers will then have to get out of the truck, secure the area and treat simulated wounded, Jennings said. At another point, training instructors will shoot dirt out in front of a truck, simulating what it looks like when a roadside bomb detonates nearby. The goal is to teach soldiers that if the vehicle isn't damaged by the bomb, they need to keep driving, Jennings said. "It helps to give them confidence, to understand the noise and dust on the battlefield," he said. Other military installations across the country have built courses similar to the one used at Fort Huachuca. At Fort Jackson in South Carolina, soldiers learning to be vehicle mechanics receive training on how to fire their weapons during a combat patrol, according to a February article from the Department of Defense news service. In the training, the soldiers practice getting out of vehicles, finding cover and returning fire, the article said. Other branches of the military also have beefed up their combat training for personnel who historically served in support roles. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base airmen about to be deployed have to complete basic combat-skills training under an effort that began in 2005. But whether it's in South Carolina or Sierra Vista, the goal of the training is the same: increasing soldiers' familiarity with the battlefield and giving them the confidence they need. "The better trained they are, the higher probability that your soldiers will be safe," Jennings said. <A name=e20071029556580.html> Newsweek November 5, 2007 Periscope Combat's Inner Cost By Gretel C. Kovach The Army has no other facility like it anywhere on earth. The Restoration and Resilience Center, opened in July at Fort Bliss, Texas, is the laboratory for WARP—the Army's experimental Warrior Resilience Program. "This is not your grandma's loony bin," says Col. John Powell, the project's overseer as commander of Fort Bliss's Beaumont Army Medical Center. The 27 participants, all volunteers, were diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. The aim is to help them get fit to return to combat. "I call this a PTSD boot camp," says Dr. John Fortunato, the Vietnam vet (now a civilian) in charge. "They have to be willing to tolerate a lot of pain before they can get better." Don't mistake this place for a standard-issue R&R facility. Stressed-out GIs in Iraq unwind at one of four in-country centers, and about 95 percent return to their units after two or three days of movies, videogames and talk, says reservist psychiatrist Col. Emile Risby. Many of those soldiers believe that the best place to recover is at the front with their buddies, who know what they've been through. But others, hard hit emotionally but driven by false shame and guilt at their supposed "weakness," go back on patrol despite not being ready for duty. Fortunato says about one soldier in six shows signs of PTSD on leaving Iraq or Afghanistan. A recent Army study found that roughly 25 percent of troops on their second deployment had signs of mental illness. Another Army report says 99 active-duty soldiers committed suicide in 2006, the worst toll in 26 years. All the same, mental-health experts say most members of the volunteer Army don't want out. Soldiering is a vital part of who they are. WARP is designed to help combat-stress sufferers who would otherwise have no alternative to a medical discharge. Treatment at the center may continue as long as nine months, combining meditation, yoga and other stress-control techniques with therapy sessions, both group and one-on-one. "We're trying to crack them open," says Fortunato. "They've got pictures in their heads they don't want to see again. If they had to see a buddy's head blown off and then take a deep breath and go on, that helped them survive." Until the shooting stopped, that is. But when such memories stay buried, they fester. Three months into the project, WARP's soldiers still have a lot of digging to do. But if the trial program proves itself, the effort and expense will be more than worthwhile. "If this costs $100,000 per soldier, then I'm saving taxpayers a whole lot of money," says Fortunato, who calculates that if a soldier is discharged with a medical disability resulting in monthly support payments for life, the price tag could be $700,000 or more. And that's leaving aside America's moral debt to its troops. <A name=e20071029556699.html> New London (CT) Day October 28, 2007 Army Boosting Efforts To Lure Trainers For Iraqi Forces Many U.S. officers attempt to sidestep transition-team duty By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Fort Riley, Kan. — Army Capt. Matthew Foster, like many officers, was not thrilled to hear he had been assigned to a training team destined for Iraq to work with the national police. The job is a growing need as U.S. forces try to prepare the Iraqis to secure their own country and is considered by many in the U.S. |
