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 The Pentagon Early Bird 30 Nov 2007 Please scroll down to read news headlines, then scroll down to read entire news article (Links Do Not Work) 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.) PRESIDENT BUSH/DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
Washington Post November 30, 2007 Pg. 4 Bush Urges Emergency War Funds To Avoid Defense Layoffs By William Branigin, Washington Post Staff Writer President Bush warned Congress yesterday that the Pentagon will soon have to start laying off civilian employees and reducing operations at U.S. military bases unless lawmakers send him an emergency war funding bill that does not mandate troop withdrawals from Iraq. Escalating a dispute with Democratic lawmakers over his request for $196 billion in supplemental funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush complained that a delay in providing the money is jeopardizing important military efforts. "The missions of this department are essential to saving Americans' lives, and they are too important to be disrupted or delayed or put at risk," Bush said at the Pentagon after he received more than two hours of briefings. "Pentagon officials have warned Congress that the continued delay in funding our troops will soon begin to have a damaging impact on the operations of this department." Congressional Democrats blame Bush for the delay because he refuses to accept a $50 billion funding bill that includes a requirement to begin pulling combat troops out of Iraq and changing the U.S. military mission there. The House passed the bill earlier this month, but Republicans blocked it in the Senate. Charging that Bush "refuses to fund his own war," Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement: "The president demands more money to continue his failed war policy, yet he and his enablers in Congress have rejected our proposal for an additional $50 billion provided they work with us to change course in Iraq. He cannot have it both ways." Reid said Bush and his fellow Republicans "are so afraid of being held accountable for their failed war policy that they would rather leave our men and women on the battlefield shorthanded than work with us to adjust this disastrous strategy." Democrats contend that the administration is exaggerating threats of imminent layoffs, saying the Pentagon can draw from a $459 billion base budget that Congress has approved. Bush disputed that yesterday. He said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has "directed the Army and Marine Corps to develop a plan to lay off civilian employees, to terminate contracts and to prepare our military bases across the country for reduced operations." Americans "do not want disputes in Washington to undermine our troops in Iraq just as they're seeing clear signs of success," he said. He called on Congress to pass a funding bill before leaving on Christmas vacation and to give the troops "what they need to succeed in their missions, without strings and without delay." The Pentagon said last week that as many as 200,000 contractors and civilian employees will begin receiving layoff warnings by Christmas unless Congress approves Bush's funding request. The $50 billion package passed by the House Nov. 14 would have funded the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next four months. But Senate Republicans blocked it -- and the White House threatened a veto -- because it would have required the administration to begin pulling U.S. combat forces out of Iraq within 30 days of enactment, with a goal of ending U.S. combat operations there by Dec. 15, 2008. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071130564329.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3912635_AET PjkQAARG9R1BUfgQh9EJj%2F1M&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20071130aaindex_concat.html&cred=JK8hsZbo6DGf5I tXt0jvx1.0gDitTN3e3d8Qth6PTlJrxmz2IH1Yb1mdXXaXm1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP New York Times November 30, 2007 Pg. 12 Bush Renews Call For Congress To Pass Iraq Financing Bill With No Strings By David Stout WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 — President Bush on Thursday began a new offensive against Congressional Democrats over money for the Iraq war, calling on the lawmakers to give American troops “what they need to succeed in their missions” and pass a bill without strings attached. “The American people expect us to work together to support our troops,” Mr. Bush said at the Pentagon after meeting with top Defense Department officials. “They do not want the government to create needless uncertainty for those defending our country, and uncertainty for their families. They do not want disputes in Washington to undermine our troops in Iraq, just as they’re seeing clear signs of success.” The last time the money issue flared up, just over a week ago, the Democrats accused the administration of using scare tactics to try to get its way on the money bill. A bill approved recently by the House would provide $50 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns — but would call for pulling American troops out of Iraq by the end of 2008 and narrowing their mission in the meantime. The president’s Republican allies in the Senate stalled the bill in that chamber. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, pounced on Mr. Bush’s words. “The president demands more money to continue his failed war policy, yet he and his enablers in Congress have rejected our proposal for an additional $50 billion provided they work with us to change course in Iraq,” Mr. Reid said in a statement. “He cannot have it both ways.” “Democrats have and will continue to ensure our troops have the resources they need to do their jobs and will continue to fight for a war strategy worthy of their sacrifices,” Mr. Reid said. The White House issued a statement before the president’s remarks on Thursday, citing sharp declines in attacks, civilian fatalities and fatalities to Iraqi security forces since the buildup of United States troops began in June. The White House said that as a result of what it called “return on success,” about 5,700 American troops would come home by year’s end. The president has repeatedly accused the Democratic-controlled Congress of dithering for months about money for the war in Iraq and the Afghanistan campaign. Mr. Bush prodded the legislators on Thursday to move quickly when they return to Washington next week and provide money for the war before adjourning for Christmas. The Senate Democratic leadership office said that Congress had appropriated $450 billion for the Iraq war so far and that despite the White House emphasis on a “return on success” troop withdrawal, 162,000 American troops were in Iraq now and 130,000 were still expected to be there next July. Democrats have described the conditions attached to the recent $50 billion bill as prudent and reasonable; the president and his allies have disdained them as attempts to micromanage military operations from afar. “We have nearly 200,000 troops in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they are relying on this Congress to send them the funding they need to complete their mission,” the White House said Thursday. “We also have about 100,000 civilian workers at bases across the country who will be receiving furlough notices if Congress continues to delay action.” The Pentagon has enough money to continue operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the time being. It can shift money between accounts, although that can be complicated. And notices of layoffs do not necessarily mean they will actually happen. But the president said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had put things in perspective when he said recently: “The Defense Department is like the world’s biggest supertanker. It cannot turn on a dime, and I cannot steer it like a skiff.” http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071130564359.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3912635_AET PjkQAARG9R1BUfgQh9EJj%2F1M&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20071130aaindex_concat.html&cred=JK8hsZbo6DGf5I tXt0jvx1.0gDitTN3e3d8Qth6PTlJrxmz2IH1Yb1mdXXaXm1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP USA Today November 30, 2007 Pg. 1 U.S. Deaths In Iraq Remain Down November toll could be lowest since May By Jim Michaels, USA Today BAGHDAD — The number of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq this month is headed toward the lowest monthly level since March 2006, reflecting a turnaround in U.S. efforts to establish security and defeat insurgents. With one day left in November, 26 U.S. troops and a civilian Pentagon employee have died in combat. Nine more servicemembers died in non-combat-related incidents. The November toll could mark the sixth consecutive month of declines in American deaths. It follows a downward trend in overall violence in Iraq. Monthly U.S. combat deaths peaked this year at 120 in May. "I believe we have the initiative," said Lt. Col. Kevin Petit, a battalion commander in Baghdad. "Now it is all about capitalizing on it." Since January, U.S. forces have used a counterinsurgency strategy directed by Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, that moved troops off large bases and into outposts established in violent areas. That shift led to an initial spike in U.S. casualties. U.S. forces encountered stiff resistance in some areas as they established outposts and challenged insurgents. The drop in U.S. deaths appears due to the change in strategy and Iraqis rejecting al-Qaeda terrorists, said Dakota Wood, who served in the Marines and is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Al-Qaeda's tactics of beheadings and other harsh treatment alienated many Iraqis, he said. At the same time, U.S. troops have established better security for Iraqis, making siding with insurgents a less attractive option, Wood said. Of the 27 U.S personnel killed in combat this month, 24 were killed by roadside bombs, or improvised explosive devices. Only three were killed by gunfire. The high proportion of IED deaths stems from insurgents being less willing to shoot at U.S. troops. It's safer to plant a bomb, Wood said. Civilian deaths in Iraq also have fallen, to under 1,000 in October from about 3,000 in December 2006, according to a U.S. military database. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071130564300.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3912635_AET PjkQAARG9R1BUfgQh9EJj%2F1M&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20071130aaindex_concat.html&cred=JK8hsZbo6DGf5I tXt0jvx1.0gDitTN3e3d8Qth6PTlJrxmz2IH1Yb1mdXXaXm1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Post November 30, 2007 Pg. 1 Iraqis' Quality Of Life Marked By Slow Gains, Many Setbacks Worries Abound That Government Isn't Up to Task of Providing Services By Amit R. Paley and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Foreign Service BAGHDAD, Nov. 29 -- This war-battered city, according to U.S. statistics, now receives an average of 11.9 hours of electricity a day, far more than earlier this year. But don't tell that to Ghaida al-Banna. For three straight days this week, the 50-year-old housewife's home in the once ritzy Mansour neighborhood received no power at all. Barely any water came out when she turned on the faucet. One thing Banna's area does have in abundance is uncollected garbage, piled into giant, malodorous heaps dotting the street. "What kind of government allows its people to live like this?" Banna asked. "They don't know how to provide services. They don't know how to do anything. Everything is getting worse and worse." As violence continues to dip across Iraq, U.S. officials say they will increasingly shift their barometers of success from security to basic services -- electricity, gasoline, water and sanitation -- that reflect whether life for Iraqis is returning to normal. But according to interviews with more than two dozen people in neighborhoods throughout Baghdad, the effort to boost services has been uneven, marked by gradual successes and frequent setbacks. In some neighborhoods, residents have seen government workers spruce up their parks or provide a few more hours of electricity, while residents of other districts report conditions continually deteriorating. The quality of life for Iraqis is expected to be at the center of an assessment Congress will receive in March from U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, according to U.S. diplomats and military officers. Yet officials are still struggling to determine how best to measure the normalcy of Iraqi life, a notion harder to quantify than attacks or corpses. American officials remain concerned about the ability of the Iraqi government, which often seems paralyzed by internal dissent, to take advantage of the decrease in violence to boost services. "Do we have a government that has the capacity to deliver basic levels of services?" said a senior U.S. diplomat here who declined to discuss the issue on the record. "If I had to answer that question right now, today, I'd say no, it's not good enough." In an interview, Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said the Iraqi government has improved basic services along with security. He said decreasing violence has allowed his ministry to reopen gas stations across the city. At those stations, where drivers last year sometimes waited for days to fill up, waits are now usually less than 15 minutes, decreasing the demand for black-market gas. "The very visible improvement in the security situation has contributed to improvements in providing the basic needs, particularly the fuel products," Shahristani said. "People are very happy that we have opened up so many stations and they don't have to waste their time in lines." But U.S. officials produced results of polling conducted for the military in Baghdad this month showing that while slight improvements were recorded, most residents are still far from satisfied with government services. Officials allowed a reporter to review results of the poll of 5,000 people but would not release a copy. The margin of error was unknown. Almost 28 percent of those polled were satisfied with electrical service and 27 percent with gasoline, the data showed. Nearly 43 percent expressed satisfaction with trash removal, and 38 percent said the same about the provision of potable water. Only 9 percent of respondents were content with jobs. Ali Hamrani, 37, an unemployed government worker, said he has no confidence in the local government, which he believes is completely corrupt. "You want me to tell you the truth? The officials at the municipal office are all crooks, and there is not an honest employee amongst them," he said. "The reality is that services are not much different than two years ago." He said residents of his neighborhood in Sadr City, a densely populated Shiite district, are frustrated that they still receive only six to eight hours of electricity a day. But they were thrilled when the local government laid down pipes about six months ago that improved their water flow dramatically. Unfortunately, the workers who dug up the road to install the pipes knocked out the telephone lines, which have remained out of service. Most frustrating to Hamrani is the lack of a sewage system, which has resulted in small lakes of feces-filled effluent in parts of Sadr City. "Yes, we can say that there have been improvements in some areas of services," Hamrani said. "But not as much as we had hoped for or as much as we need." Quantifying the Situation Military officials struggling to quantify improvements in Iraqis' quality of life are wary after the intense scrutiny that security statistics have come under this year. In an attempt to demonstrate transparency in the way the military compiles a wide range of data, more than 20 senior American officials conducted a two-day seminar for reporters this week at a military base just outside Baghdad. The U.S. military has developed sophisticated reporting techniques and computer software systems to measure everything from Sunni deaths at the hands of Shiites, and vice versa, to the numbers of suicide and roadside bombs and trained Iraqi army officers. Details of an enemy attack in the field are reported and compiled in an enormous database -- containing information on hundreds of thousands of incidents -- less than two hours after they occur. The military says it is constantly updating and clarifying its data. Aides informed Petraeus this week that closer analysis had shown that the number of mostly Sunni volunteers who have signed up to aid U.S. forces fighting the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq was 60,321 and not the 77,000 that senior military commanders and administration officials in Washington have used repeatedly. Officers said the command is bracing for a new round of controversy when the Pentagon releases its next quarterly Iraq progress report to Congress in about 10 days. For the first time -- assuming the Pentagon accepts the recommendations of senior commanders here -- the report will include Iraqi government data on the number of attacks against civilians nationwide that the U.S. military believes are far less accurate than its own. But Col. William E. Rapp, a senior Petraeus aide, said the truth is probably somewhere in between the U.S. and Iraqi figures. As American forces begin withdrawing from parts of Iraq, he said, the U.S. command will become ever more dependent on Iraqis to provide security information. "It's a falsehood to say that if an American didn't see it, it didn't happen in Iraq," he said. "At some point in time, we're going to have to cut the string and just say, you know, okay, we just don't know much about what's going on" in major parts of Iraq, Rapp said. "We're just going to have to live with that." And as the Iraqis become chiefly responsible for security, Rapp said, "maybe we're going to be shifting our real assessment to economic measures." The apparent dysfunction within the Iraqi government, however, can make it difficult to obtain accurate information. The Ministry of Electricity, for example, did not respond to repeated requests for data on power supplied to Baghdad residents. Aides in the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said they were also unable to obtain the figures. "We do not have very good systems in place right now for transmitting information," said one of the aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. According to a military presentation based on figures from the U.S. Embassy's Iraqi Transition Assistance Office, however, an average of 15.7 hours of power was provided in October nationwide. Maysan province in the southeast received the least, 11.6 hours, while Anbar province in the west received the most, 23.3 hours. Baghdad was on the lower end, with about 11.9 hours per day. State Department figures from six months ago showed the city receiving an average of 5.1 hours a day. 'Not the New Iraq' No residents of Baghdad interviewed for this article said they received power for nearly 12 hours a day. Assad Wazan, 36, a generator operator in Karrada, one of the most stable and prosperous neighborhoods in the capital, said he receives about six hours of power a day. Last month, he said, there was often no power for days on end. When he called the power company to complain, Wazan said, he was told that nearly all the power was going to the compounds of powerful political figures in the neighborhood, such as President Jalal Talabani. "These people are getting 24 hours of electricity a day," Wazan said on a recent evening. "It's just not right. This is not the new Iraq we were waiting for." But there have been some recent improvements, Wazan said. The water they received before was undrinkable. "It looked like this," he said, pointing at a cup of coffee. "Now we drink it, and none of my children have gotten diarrhea," he said. "Yet." U.S. officials are working with the Iraqi government on projects to improve life for Baghdad residents. A 14 1/2 -mile sewage line on the west side of the city that serves 3 million people went from 35 percent operational in May to 80 percent this month, the military said in a statement. The giant al-Boetha landfill south of the city is 90 percent built. The Maliki government has also appointed former cabinet minister Ahmed Chalabi to head a committee charged with improving services in Baghdad. "They're taking a kind of ombudsman approach to solving things now," said the senior U.S. diplomat. "They're talking about one generator, an irrigation pump, how to get doctors into one health clinic. You might say these aren't big strategic decisions, but they're responding to actual, direct, local concerns. That's new." Mahmoud Sami Fakhrideen, 39, a Sunni spare car parts salesman, said he has noticed an improvement in trash collection in his Zayouna neighborhood. And the electricity has increased from about two hours in the summer to six hours this month. But he is angry about the sewage that flows in the streets, the high price of gasoline and his perception that Shiite neighborhoods are receiving more than Sunni areas. "It was definitely so much better for us before the war," he said. "We were never suffering the way we are now." Special correspondents Naseer Nouri and Zaid Sabah contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071130564320.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3912635_AET PjkQAARG9R1BUfgQh9EJj%2F1M&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20071130aaindex_concat.html&cred=JK8hsZbo6DGf5I tXt0jvx1.0gDitTN3e3d8Qth6PTlJrxmz2IH1Yb1mdXXaXm1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP New York Times November 30, 2007 Pg. 1 Iraq Lacks Plan On The Return Of Refugees, Military Says By Michael R. Gordon and Stephen Farrell BAGHDAD, Nov. 29 — As Iraqi refugees begin to stream back to Baghdad, American military officials say the Iraqi government has yet to develop a plan to absorb the influx and prevent it from setting off a new round of sectarian violence. The Iraqi government lacks a mechanism to settle property disputes if former residents return to Baghdad only to find their homes occupied, the officials said. Nor has the Iraqi government come forward with a detailed plan to provide aid, shelter and other essential services to the thousands of Iraqis who might return. American commanders caution that if the return is not carefully managed, there is a risk of undermining the recent security gains. “All these guys coming back are probably going to find somebody else living in their house,” said Col. William Rapp, a senior aide to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, speaking at a two-day military briefing on measuring military trends for a small group of American reporters in Baghdad. “We have been asking, pleading with the government of Iraq, to come up with a policy so that it is not put upon our battalion commanders and the I.S.F. battalion commanders to figure it out on the ground,” he added, referring to the American and Iraqi security force commanders. When sectarian violence soared in 2006, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis fled to Syria and Jordan, or moved to safer areas in Iraq. But now that the American troop reinforcement plan and a new counterinsurgency strategy have helped reverse a rising tide of car bombings and sectarian killings, there are signs that Iraqis are starting to return. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has hailed the development as an indication that security is beginning to improve. As if to underscore Mr. Maliki’s point, 375 Iraqi refugees arrived Thursday in a convoy of buses from Damascus, Syria, escorted by heavily armed policemen. After the lengthy journey, the tired Iraqis were ushered into the white marble affluence of the Mansour Melia Hotel in Baghdad to receive a promised government payout to people returning to the capital. Many neighborhoods in Baghdad have become largely Shiite or Sunni, as one group drove the other out in calculated sectarian cleansing. Sunnis have moved into Shiite homes, and Shiites into Sunni ones. This segregation has contributed to the decline in violence. But what would happen if the original residents insisted on moving back into their homes? Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite politician and former Iraqi exile who made common cause with the Americans against Saddam Hussein, has been charged with developing a plan to provide services. American officers discussed estimates of the displaced Iraqis at a seminar here on the military’s metrics of assessing violence in Iraq held at Camp Victory. Recent American military data indicates that for the fourth week in a row, the nationwide weekly number of attacks is at its lowest level since January 2006. The number of civilians killed, as measured by the American and Iraqi governments, continued to decline in November. The number of weekly casualties, wounded as well as killed, suffered by Iraqi civilians, Iraqi forces and American forces, increased last week by 56 percent but was still below the level for most of 2006 and 2007. The military also lowered its tally of how many Iraqis had joined neighborhood watch groups. The new figure for Concerned Local Citizens, as the military calls the volunteers, is 60,321. The previous estimate of 77,000 erroneously combined the number of volunteers who are currently serving with those who had expressed a willingness to join. Col. Martin Stanton, who oversaw the count, said he told General Petraeus about the new figures this week. Military officials said that they were seeking to make greater use of some Iraqi government data to provide a more comprehensive portrayal of the situation in Iraq. Though there are concerns about the reliability of some Iraqi reports, American military data generally understates Iraqi civilian deaths, since American units only report what they observe, officials said. At General Petraeus’s recommendation, the Pentagon is expected for the first time to include the Iraqi government data on civilian deaths in its report next month on security trends in Iraq. While there is no question that large numbers of Iraqis have left their homes, American officials said that the exact number is not available. The International Organization for Migration has reported that the number of internally “displaced” Iraqis — those who have fled their homes but still live in Iraq — has grown to more than one million since the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra. Among those displaced Iraqis, more than 350,000 live in Baghdad Province, according to estimates by humanitarian organizations. Estimates by the Iraqi Red Crescent of the number of displaced Iraqis run much higher, but are marred by the double and triple counting of Iraqis who move from one area to another, American officials say. One difficulty in fixing an accurate count is that many displaced Iraqis do not register their migrant status with Iraqi authorities, American officials said. In addition, more than two million Iraqis are also estimated to have left Iraq altogether for neighboring counties like Syria and Jordan and other nations. Col. Cheryl L. Smart, who tracks the data on displaced Iraqis for General Petraeus’s command, said that the American military had been “very vocal” with the Iraqi government about the need to establish a system to adjudicate claims about property rights and to avoid using Iraqi troops to carry out “forced evictions.” Colonel Rapp voiced the hope that confrontations might be avoided by building new homes for returning Iraqis instead of forcing all of the squatters to leave. “It is probably going to be resolved with new housing construction as opposed to wholesale evictions and resettlement,” he said. “Whether they will remix is probably a multiyear, decade kind of issue,” he added, referring to the possibility of sectarian reintegration. “The immediate return of I.D.P.’s will create tensions in that system, and we are concerned about it,” he said, referring to the internally displaced people in Iraq. A senior Sunni official said that the government was not doing nearly enough. “There are many missing links,” said an Iraqi vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni. “We don’t have a comprehensive plan. We have a ministry of migration, but the problem is the bureaucracy.” Speaking at his home in the Huriya neighborhood in northwest Baghdad, Mr. Chalabi said he was aware of the issue of returnees’ lingering fears. “I don’t think that people who have committed crimes or transgressions against their fellows in those areas would come back,” Mr. Chalabi said. “But the fear of, for example, the Sunnis here, is that the people who did the transgressions on the other side continue to be here and that they may threaten them.” He said that he had put forward proposals for large-scale new housing developments, but that they should not be on a sectarian basis. “Baghdad is an integrated city and we should try to get it back to an integrated city,” he said. Col. J. B. Burton, commander of the Second Brigade Combat Team of the First Infantry Division, which controlled northwest Baghdad until this month, said that some neighborhood leaders had made efforts to allow displaced Iraqis to return to their residences, but that their programs were hampered by the lack of a national plan. “Displacement is a national issue,” Colonel Burton said Thursday in an e-mail exchange. “The government has got to establish policies which are not focused on sects.” Most of the Iraqis who returned to the Mansour Melia Hotel on Thursday said they were returning voluntarily after hearing reports that the security situation had improved, but some said they had been forced to return because they had no jobs or money in Syria. Some said their houses were long ago destroyed by Shiite militias or Sunni insurgents, or still occupied by people on the other side of the sectarian divide. Others said that it was still too unsafe to go back to areas like Dora, Jihad and Mansour, and that they would have to stay with relatives. Abdul Kadim Mohammed, 58, a Shiite from Abu Ghraib, said he would be staying with relatives for now. “I feel more comfortable in Baghdad but still can’t go to Abu Ghraib, which is not completely good,” he said. “The next step that the government needs to work on is how to get back to our homes.” Reporting was contributed by Alissa J. Rubin, Damian Cave, Mudhafer al-Hussaini and Ahmad Fadam. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071130564388.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3912635_AET PjkQAARG9R1BUfgQh9EJj%2F1M&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20071130aaindex_concat.html&cred=JK8hsZbo6DGf5I tXt0jvx1.0gDitTN3e3d8Qth6PTlJrxmz2IH1Yb1mdXXaXm1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times November 30, 2007 Iraq's Numbers Don't Add Up, U.S. Says American commanders rely increasingly on data compiled by the nation's forces, but fear they aren't fully reliable. By Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer BAGHDAD — As U.S. forces begin to scale back in Iraq, the military is becoming increasingly reliant on Iraqi forces to report a wide array of crucial statistics, from the number of attacks on the local infrastructure to how many Iraqi civilians have been killed or wounded. And just as Iraqi forces have had a mixed record in fighting insurgents, they have been spotty at providing data from the regions where they have taken command. Iraqi officials have been reporting far higher civilian death totals than those reported by U.S. forces, and aides to American commanders now acknowledge that the U.S. military probably had been undercounting such casualties. Strategists for Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander here, said they were beginning to incorporate Iraqi tallies into their own, but underscored that though the totals might be different, the trends in both Iraqi and American numbers show dramatic decreases in civilian deaths since the summer. Also troubling to the United States is the frequent failure of Iraqi forces to report data on incidents occurring in the regions where they take the lead in providing security. In sectors handed over to Iraqi army and police forces, U.S. planners have seen a sharp decrease in overall data, severely hampering their ability to determine whether their military plan is succeeding. The questionable nature of the Iraqi-compiled data, which is expected to become even more problematic as U.S. forces shrink back to pre-buildup levels over the next six months, has placed American commanders in an awkward position. The more successful they are in turning over military responsibility to Iraqis, the U.S. officials think, the less likely they are to get reliable evidence that their techniques are working. Statistics have been a key component in Petraeus' effort to convince the American public and elected officials in Washington that U.S.-led forces are finally making progress in Iraq. Unreliable data also poses a practical problem. Petraeus and Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who is in charge of day-to-day operations in Iraq, receive extended daily briefings on the number and location of attacks, the performance of essential services and discoveries of weapons caches, and use the information to make adjustments to their war plan. "Our presence decreases and we have a greater reliance on information that is to be provided from the host nation, Iraqis, so we can maintain situational awareness on what is going on," said Army Lt. Col. Todd Gesling, a top officer on Petreaus' planning staff. "That's the crux of the problem. . . . The Iraqis don't have a robust culture of reporting things." Aides said charts showing the rise and recent fall in violence and casualties have become regular features of the general's presentations to visiting congressional delegations, and are expected to feature prominently in the military's March update in Washington, as they did during Petraeus' high-profile congressional testimony in September. Even with about 160,000 troops still in Iraq, the United States' own record-keeping has been controversial, with Iraqi sources and international observers often reporting much higher levels of civilian casualties. For much of the time after the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, American officials said they did not track civilian deaths. Petraeus' aides say his counterinsurgency strategy, which focuses on protecting the Iraqi population, has led them to try to compile such figures accurately to gauge whether the troop buildup has made people safer. The conflicting figures frequently arise from incidents in which the U.S. asserts it has killed insurgents whereas Iraqi officials and witnesses say civilians died. This month, local leaders in Tarmiya, north of Baghdad, said about 40 members of a citizens group working with U.S. forces to flush insurgents from the area were doing a nighttime assault when they were killed by U.S. forces who mistook them for rebels. American officials said 25 people died in the attack, all insurgents. Similarly, in October, the Iraqi government lashed out at the U.S. military after clashes in Sadr City. Iraqi officials said several civilians were killed, but U.S. forces called the dead "criminals." Independent monitoring groups have accused the United States of playing down civilian death counts to make the troop buildup look more successful. But with no official Iraqi system in place to tally civilian death figures, there remains little agreement on the actual number. Estimates have ranged from the tens of thousands to 1.2 million dead. Aides to Petraeus and Odierno, speaking at a two-day round table with military writers here at military headquarters at Camp Victory, acknowledged that they probably had undercounted civilian casualties in Iraq and said they had changed the way they gather such information, using data gathered from Iraqi sources. American officers say that trends in both U.S. and "host nation" reporting show that violence has decreased substantially over the last four months. "The trends are the same; the magnitude is different," said Army Col. Bill Rapp, head of Petreaus' small in-house group of advisors. "He reports both, and our guess is truth is in between that range." Such statistics are regularly used by both Iraqis and the American military. The U.S. command spent much of the summer in a well-publicized spat with the Iraqi Health Ministry, then dominated by followers of the Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr, over the number of dead Iraqis being dumped on the streets of Baghdad and at local morgues. Rapp accused Sadr of using "inflated" death statistics to undermine the Iraqi government and the U.S. troop buildup, which had just begun. "They had very much an agenda to discredit the government of Iraq, to discredit the security situation," Rapp said. With staffing changes at the Health Ministry, the difference between American and Iraqi estimates of civilian deaths has decreased, but still varies by as much as 500 per month. Of equal concern to U.S. military analysts, however, is not the over-counting but the lack of any counting at all. The effect has already become evident in southern Iraq, where British troops have withdrawn from the four provinces they once patrolled and are now based at the airfield outside Basra, making few forays into the city, Iraq's second-largest. During the first three weeks of November, for example, Iraqi security forces reported finding more than 250 weapons caches nationwide. But in the south, the discovery of only one cache was reported. Air Force Col. David Larivee, Petraeus' chief of assessments, said the reason could simply be the relatively low levels of violence in the Shiite-dominated south. But he acknowledged that it also could be a result of political or cultural reluctance to tell the central government and U.S. forces the true state of security in Basra. "We're probably not seeing everything that's going on in Basra," Rapp said. "We're not getting a whole lot of reports because the Brits are on the airfield and they're not out so much in the town." Although Petraeus' aides are confident that they receive all data that Iraqi forces send to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, they remain concerned that sectarian politics at the provincial level may mean that incidents that are well-documented by Iraqi troops are not forwarded to Baghdad. "Either they're not reporting, or they're getting stopped along the way and not getting to him," Rapp said. Politics aside, senior U.S. officers said even the small number of incident reports they get from Iraqi forces, which come in at a rate of about 70 per month, compared with 200 from U.S. forces, lack details and specifics, making them of little use. In addition, unlike U.S. forces, which check and recheck initial reports from the field -- including sending Special Forces to morgues after especially large insurgent attacks and setting up an entire brigade, Task Force Troy, to conduct forensic detective work on deadly roadside bombs -- Iraqi forces rarely respond to U.S. requests for reinvestigating incidents. "I will tell you that typically, the initial report is the only report that comes in," said Gesling. "There has been very limited success in being able to reach down and get additional clarification on reports that have already been forwarded." U.S. officials believe Iraqi military and police forces, with training, will become more comprehensive, and they say they have already seen some improvement in the number and details of incident reports. But huge gaps remain. In October, for example, the entire command and control system used by Iraqi security forces to communicate with headquarters was shut down for two weeks when the government failed to pay the U.S. contractor that provides the satellite communications. For those two weeks, U.S. commanders and the Iraqi government received no reports from Iraqi forces in the field. "This isn't the only instance it occurred" Gesling said. Times staff writer Tina Susman contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071130564363.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3912635_AET PjkQAARG9R1BUfgQh9EJj%2F1M&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20071130aaindex_concat.html&cred=JK8hsZbo6DGf5I tXt0jvx1.0gDitTN3e3d8Qth6PTlJrxmz2IH1Yb1mdXXaXm1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Arizona Daily Star (Tucson) November 30, 2007 Iraqi Military Chief Has Warning For U.S. Advises wary eye on Sunni allies in tribal militias By Associated Press BAGHDAD — An Iraqi military chief delivered a sharp warning to an American commander: Beware of your new alliances with former Sunni insurgents. The U.S. officer, Lt. Col. Wilson A. Shoffner, had his own message to pass on. Iraq's Shiite-dominated leadership, he said, must learn to live with the outreach to Sunni tribes, whose help is considered crucial in recent blows against extremists such as al-Qaida in Iraq. The exchange this week at a joint U.S.-Iraqi base — witnessed by The Associated Press — highlights one of the deepest ruptures in strategic outlook between Washington and Baghdad. The Pentagon sees the Sunni tribal militias — known as Awakening Councils and other names — as vital partners to weaken the Sunni-led insurgency. On Tuesday, Sunni sheiks in north-central Iraq pledged 6,000 fresh fighters to join tens of thousands of others. But the Iraqi government, which is under heavy Shiite influence, is hesitant to incorporate the Sunni recruits into the regular security forces and worries they could easily slip back to the rebel side. The balancing act even can reach down to individual Sunni figures. At the meeting with Shoffner, the Iraqi officer, Lt. Col. Yahya Rasoul-Allah Ali, objected to U.S. overtures to a Sunni religious leader known as Sheik Saad, who was released from U.S. custody last month after being held a year. A wanted poster for Saad still hangs in Shoff-ner's office. Ali produced a photo of Saad brandishing an AK-47 rifle. Ali said the others in the photo were insurgents linked to al-Qaida. "Let me tell you something, my friend," Ali told the American commander. "Those who attacked and planted bombs to kill us once will do it again a hundred times. Meet him and reach your own conclusions, but our reputation as soldiers fighting for principles is at stake." Shoffner, a paratrooper who leads U.S. forces in several northern Baghdad neighborhoods, sought to reassure Ali that he would be cautious. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has promised to prevent what he called the infiltration of the Shiite-dominated security forces by Iraqis who wish to "turn the clock back," a reference to the minority Sunni Arabs who dominated the country under Saddam Hussein. Al-Maliki's government has not tried to formally block the American strategy but has managed to stymie efforts, according to U.S. officers in Baghdad. Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced that a soldier was killed Wednesday by small-arms fire in western Baghdad. Fewer Iraqi volunteers reported The American military discovered there are fewer Iraqi civilians serving as volunteer guards in their home areas than it had thought, saying accounting mistakes had inflated the number by thousands. Senior military officers said they had reduced the nationwide total from 77,000 to 60,321 — most of them Sunni Arabs. The officers also expressed impatience with the Shiite-dominated government's failure to fully embrace the U.S.-backed home guard program and warned that the armed men could "drift back toward violence" if they aren't put to work. Officials said the 22 percent discrepancy in guard numbers came about because not all Iraqis recorded as enlisting to protect towns against extremists had been accepted into the Concerned Local Citizens program, which has been credited with helping curb violence. Col. Martin Stanton of the military's reconciliation and engagement office said he detected the discrepancy during an audit that found 17,000 people previously listed on the rolls "were not standing post as a volunteer." http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071130564358.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3912635_AET PjkQAARG9R1BUfgQh9EJj%2F1M&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20071130aaindex_concat.html&cred=JK8hsZbo6DGf5I tXt0jvx1.0gDitTN3e3d8Qth6PTlJrxmz2IH1Yb1mdXXaXm1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP USA Today November 30, 2007 Pg. 8 Iraq Seeks Custody Of 3 Prisoners Al-Maliki asks Bush to hand over former officials By Associated Press BAGHDAD — Iraq's prime minister asked President Bush to hand over Saddam Hussein's cousin, known as "Chemical Ali," and two other former officials sentenced to hang for the 1986-88 crackdown against the Kurds, two government officials said Thursday. The formal request from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki could strain relations with U.S. officials, who have refused to surrender the men, and incite a backlash from Sunni Arabs. Former military commander Ali Hassan al-Majid, former defense minister Sultan Hashim al-Taie and Hussein Rashid Mohammed, who had served as deputy director of operations for the Iraqi armed forces, were convicted in June of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. They were then sentenced to death for their part in a crackdown that killed nearly 200,000 Kurdish civilians and guerrillas two decades ago. An appeals court upheld the verdict in September, and under Iraqi law the executions were to have taken place within a month. The three men are in U.S. custody and their execution date is on hold in response to a struggle between al-Maliki and the Sunni vice president that has taken on special significance for Iraq's Sunni Arabs, some of whom want al-Taie's death sentence commuted. Al-Taie signed the cease-fire with U.S.-led forces that ended the 1991 Gulf War. Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and parliamentary Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, also a Sunni, say al-Taie's life should be spared in a gesture of national reconciliation. The U.S. military has said it wants Iraqi leadership to resolve the dispute before it hands over the men. Al-Maliki's letter to Bush, which the two Iraqi government officials said was given to the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday, demanded that they be handed over immediately. The officials, both of whom had seen the letter, spoke on condition of anonymity because its contents were not public. U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo would not say whether such a letter had been sent. In the letter, al-Maliki accused unnamed politicians of interfering in the legal process for personal reasons. He also said Sunni politicians had no right under Iraqi law to pardon or ease the sentences of people convicted of crimes against humanity and condemned, the officials told the Associated Press. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071130564324.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3912635_AET PjkQAARG9R1BUfgQh9EJj%2F1M&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20071130aaindex_concat.html&cred=JK8hsZbo6DGf5I tXt0jvx1.0gDitTN3e3d8Qth6PTlJrxmz2IH1Yb1mdXXaXm1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP New York Times November 30, 2007 Pg. 12 Bombs Found Near Home Of Politician In Baghdad By Alissa J. Rubin BAGHDAD, Nov. 29 — Two car bombs were found near the house of a senior Sunni political leader on Thursday, and seven of his bodyguards were arrested, an Iraqi military spokesman said. The house of the prominent Sunni, Adnan al-Dulaimi, a leader of the Iraqi Consensus Front, is in Adel, an affluent Sunni-majority neighborhood in Baghdad. Iraqi soldiers backed by American forces found the cars while searching for the killer of Omar Muhammad, a fighter in the local Sunni Awakening Council, a group of people who recently banded together to take on extremist fighters active in the area, said Qassim Atta, a spokesman for the Baghdad security plan. “The first result of the investigation showed that the guards made the bombs and that they were plotting to kill Awakening Council fighters,” Mr. Atta said. Mr. Dulaimi did not return telephone calls, but his secretary, Mohaned al-Essawi, said that there was only one car bomb and that Mr. Dulaimi was the target. “All the statements of Qassim Atta are lies,” Mr. Essawi said. “In every neighborhood murders happen, and Adnan al-Dulaimi’s guards are not responsible for this murder.” In comments to Reuters, Mr. Dulaimi emphasized that the bombs were found in an alley outside his home. Mr. Essawi said that the one bomb he acknowledged was not inside Mr. Dulaimi’s compound. It is hard to understand why Mr. Dulaimi’s guards might want to kill fellow Sunnis in the Awakening Council, although there have been tensions in some areas between Sunni politicians and the Council. A military official familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation, said that it was impossible to rule out that an enemy of Mr. Dulaimi might have been trying to frame him. In the Iraqi Parliament on Thursday, lawmakers thwarted efforts by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to win approval for two new ministers, keeping the measure from coming to a vote. The two nominees, for the Communications and Justice Ministries, would be filling jobs left vacant when ministers for the secular Iraqiya bloc, led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, stepped down this year. Lawmakers who helped to block the vote said they were protesting Mr. Maliki’s failure to consult them before sending his nominees to the Parliament for approval. Some also said they were angry about a proposed new rule that would allow the Parliament to approve legislation with just a majority of those present instead of a majority of the total body. The 275-member Parliament rarely has a quorum, so if only a majority of those present approve legislation, it means that measures could pass with only a minority of legislators voting. “We have agreed that this is a unity government and that the prime minister should lead a government of national unity,” said Qassim Daoud, an independent Shiite member of Parliament. “He violated this by sending us the names of these ministers without consulting the blocs.” “He has to make an effort to engage the Tawafiq bloc,” he said, referring to the Iraqi Consensus Front, the largest bloc of Sunni Arabs in Parliament. Mr. Maliki has had tense relations with the group for months. Legislators in that bloc, as well as those connected to Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric, walked out of Thursday’s session in protest. Mr. Maliki’s disagreements with various blocs had left 17 ministries vacant for months. Recently he succeeded in filling two posts, in health and agriculture. Violence outside Baghdad remained generally low, although there were a few exceptions, notably in Salahuddin and Diyala Provinces. Several mayors of towns in Salahuddin have been the targets of attacks in the last two days, and pamphlets appeared with threats to kill local officials, especially those working with the Awakening Councils. In Australia, the prime minister-elect, Kevin Rudd, said about 550 combat troops in Iraq, out of 1,500 Australian troops in the region, would be withdrawn by the middle of next year, Reuters reported. Qais Mizher contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Diyala and Salahuddin Provinces. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071130564404.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3912635_AET PjkQAARG9R1BUfgQh9EJj%2F1M&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20071130aaindex_concat.html&cred=JK8hsZbo6DGf5I tXt0jvx1.0gDitTN3e3d8Qth6PTlJrxmz2IH1Yb1mdXXaXm1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times November 30, 2007 Iraqi Lawmakers Boycott Session The move scuttles efforts by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to win approval for two Cabinet nominees. By Ann M. Simmons, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer BAGHDAD — Lawmakers from several Iraqi parties boycotted a parliamentary session Thursday, in effect derailing efforts by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to get approval for nominees to fill two vacant Cabinet posts. At least 196 legislators had signed their names as present at the parliament, but almost 100 of them failed to show up for the session when they learned that voting for new ministers of justice and communications was on the agenda, attendees said. Without a simple majority of its 275 members present, the parliament could not conduct the vote. The session had been disrupted the day before by lawmakers protesting what they said was overly aggressive behavior toward them by U.S. soldiers guarding the Green Zone, the heavily fortified area in Baghdad where the parliament is located. The boycott Thursday underscored the political divisions that remain despite reduced sectarian violence. Lawmakers have failed to make significant progress in tackling legislation that Washington views as crucial for fostering reconciliation among the country's religious and ethnic groups. Rashid Azzawi, a legislator with the Iraqi Accordance Front, a major Sunni Muslim bloc in the parliament, said the boycott had nothing to do with the affiliations of the nominees. Both candidates -- a Shiite Muslim to fill the justice post and a Sunni Arab for the communications position -- are considered independents. "Some lawmakers were surprised that voting for the nominees was on the agenda," Azzawi said. "That was the cause of the boycott." In other developments, 12 people were killed and 25 wounded when militants fired Katyusha rockets at a village near the city of Baqubah in Diyala province, local police sources said. The rockets reportedly hit the village of Salam, which has been caught in a power struggle between tribes and militants aligned with the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, local leaders said. Diyala, a province that borders Iran, is an Al Qaeda in Iraq stronghold that had been racked by sectarian violence. U.S. commanders there have reported success in stemming attacks. About 5,000 U.S. combat troops are expected to complete withdrawal from Diyala next month, but the overall number of soldiers there will increase as other forces are redeployed from elsewhere in the country to cover the pullout. In a separate incident, gunmen dressed in Iraqi army uniforms stopped a minibus at a fake checkpoint outside Baqubah and kidnapped 14 passengers, provincial police officials said. Times staff writers Wail Alhafith and Saif Hameed and special correspondents in Baghdad contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071130564445.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3912635_AET PjkQAARG9R1BUfgQh9EJj%2F1M&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20071130aaindex_concat.html&cred=JK8hsZbo6DGf5I tXt0jvx1.0gDitTN3e3d8Qth6PTlJrxmz2IH1Yb1mdXXaXm1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Seattle Times November 30, 2007 Iraqi Lawmakers Mount Attack On Kurdish Oil Deals By Sameer N. Yacoub, Associated Press BAGHDAD — The Kurdish regional government's oil deals with foreign companies drew sharp criticism Thursday in the Iraqi parliament, with some lawmakers saying the contracts set a dangerous precedent and threatened efforts to push through U.S.-backed legislation aimed at promoting national unity. Kurdish authorities have signed more than a dozen contracts with foreign companies over the objections of Oil Ministry officials in Baghdad, who consider the deals illegal. During the Thursday parliamentary session, Shiite lawmaker Waiel Abdul-Lateef described the unilateral Kurdish moves as a "dangerous issue" that could pave the way for other Iraqi provinces to sign contracts without the knowledge of the central government. "Provincial officials now can sign oil contracts and nobody can stop them," he said. Kurdistan's leaders have signed an exploration deal with Hunt Oil of Texas and others with European companies. Abdul-Lateef complained that the central government in Baghdad has no control over the Kurdistan region, which has enjoyed broad autonomy since 1991. "According to what is going on, it seems that those people do not belong to Iraq," he said of the Kurds. The debate in parliament reflected a wider discussion about the extent of powers that provincial or regional governments should have after local elections are held for the country's 18 provinces. That vote, for which no date has been set, will pave the way for the possible creation of self-rule regions similar to the 16-year-old Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Calls by a major Shiite party to create a similar entity in nine provinces south of Baghdad have intensified the debate, with many in Iraq fearing the country appears well on its way to a breakup along sectarian and ethnic lines. A constitution adopted in a nationwide vote two years ago provides for a federal system of government, but Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a member of Iraq's Shiite majority, has recently said he favored limited provincial powers and a strong central government. Kurdish lawmaker Saad Barazanji argued that the Kurdistan oil contracts are constitutional, accusing the oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, of failing to carry out his duties to stop the smuggling of Iraqi oil. The Iraqi Cabinet approved a draft bill last February to regulate the country's oil industry and sent it to parliament. But parliament, citing legal technicalities, sent it back to the Cabinet. The measure has been bogged down in negotiations ever since. Last August, the Kurds enacted their own oil law to regulate the oil sector in the region, further angering the central government in Baghdad. Most of Iraq's oil lies in the Shiite-controlled south and the Kurdish north. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20071130564310.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3912635_AET PjkQAARG9R1BUfgQh9EJj%2F1M&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilenam e=e20071130aaindex_concat.html&cred=JK8hsZbo6DGf5I tXt0jvx1.0gDitTN3e3d8Qth6PTlJrxmz2IH1Yb1mdXXaXm1#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Post November 30, 2007 Pg. 14 Processing Of Iraqi Refugees Improves, Officials Say State Department Expects as Many as 12,000 to Arrive in the United States Next Year By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writer Bush administration officials said yesterday that they are stepping up the processing of Iraqis who wish to come to the United States, but officials cautioned that the complexities of the two immigration programs involved will limit the number of entrants in the next few months. Of the almost 2.2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan, 14,000 of those who have registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have been referred to the United States for resettlement, State Department official James Foley told reporters yesterday. Of that number, 2,350 have arrived in the United States this year under two programs. The larger program is for Iraqi refugees, and the other is a visa program created by legislation, for interpreters and translators who worked for the U.S. Embassy or coalition forces in Iraq or Afghanistan. The latter began with a limit of 50 per year; it has been raised to 500 a year. Foley, named in September by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as senior coordinator for Iraqi refugees, said the United States was "not prepared" initially for the refugee surge that began last year, but "now we are running efficiently." He said the delay was partly caused by Syria's refusal until recently to allow the questioning of Iraqi refugees in that country. With the goal for 2008 set at 12,000 immigrants, Foley said, "Now several hundred are coming in a month," and he expects that "to rise up to 1,000 a month." The process, which involves the departments of State and Homeland Security interviews and multiple security and other checks, can take as long as six months per family. The State Department must first determine whether basic information given to UNHCR is correct and confirm that the Iraqis meet criteria of "past persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution" because of their religion, political opinions or profession. Thereafter, State prepares each case for Homeland Security interviewers, who have their own questions. Five Homeland Security investigators, who have recently been allowed to enter Syria, will be able to complete interviews by the end of December of only 218 of 344 cases of Iraqi refugee families, representing 712 people seeking U.S. asylum, according to Lori Scialabba, special assistant for Iraqi refugees to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. "We will have another [Homeland Security] group go back in January and complete the remaining cases," Scialabba said, adding, "and that doesn't mean there won't be more referrals by that time." After the Homeland Security reviews are finished, the State Department may have questions about health and other issues before a family is cleared to go. Additional delays are caused in finding groups that can help settle the families in the United States. So far, the process has led to the denial of 1,500 cases. "Not all of those applying are legitimate refugees," said an official involved in the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We are mindful and take seriously that we have to welcome Iraqis, but we also take seriously our security procedures, and we don't want to admit someone who has bad intentions or potential ties to terrorism." Foley said that 12,000 Iraqis coming to the United States "is not a cap but a goal." He pointed out that many of the refugees have not registered with UNHCR to start the process. In Jordan, for example, he said that of about 500,000 refugees, only about 50,000 had registered, and, of those, only 7,000 were referred to the United States. The special visa program has other complications. It is open to translators or interpreters who worked for U.S. armed forces or the embassy for at least 12 months, have a favorable written recommendation from the ambassador or flag officer of the unit served, and a clean background check. Not included in the faster special visa program are thousands of Iraqis employed by private contractors working for U.S. agency and coalition forces. Their situation is complicated, because some contractors no longer are in Iraq, making it difficult to confirm employment. State and Homeland Security are trying to work out problems associated with these Iraqis, according to the Associated Press, which first reported on the issue. While those under the refugee program have their travel to the United States paid for by the U.S. government, visa beneficiaries must pay their own way. Recipients get a green card upon arrival, while those in the refugee category have to wait a year before they can apply. Both groups must wait five years before they can apply for citizenship. http://ebird.afis.mil |
