Posted on 03/03/2005 7:00:13 PM PST by TexKat
US soldiers take up defensive positions after several shots were fired by insurgents at their convoy in Mosul(AFP/Mauricio Lima)
A U.S. Marine keeps a close watch during a foot patrol in the Iraqi western city of al-Ramadi in this handout photograph released on March 3, 2005. U.S. Marines and sailors are currently conducting Operation River Blitz against insurgency by use of checkpoints in vital entry points to the city. The graffiti on the wall reads in Arabic, 'No vehicles are allowed into the city'. REUTERS/US Navy/Shane T. McCoy/Handout
Thanks TexKat! Keep 'em coming.
By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: March 4, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 26 - If there has been a single transformative moment in Iraq for the men of the First Battalion, 69th Infantry, it came on Nov. 29 with the explosion of an enormous bomb and the death of two of their own.
The blast, on a dirt road in the countryside northwest of Baghdad, tore through a Humvee, killing Staff Sgt. Christian P. Engeldrum, 39, and Specialist Wilfredo F. Urbina, 29. They were the first casualties the New York City battalion had suffered since arriving in Iraq in October for a one-year tour of duty - and the battalion's first combat deaths since World War II. The attackers had buried a 200-pound aerial bomb attached to two 155-millimeter artillery shells and detonated the charge by remote control.
"It made it all a lot more scary," said Sgt. Louis Olander, 21, a college student from Manhattan and a soldier in the battalion. "It was a moment of clarity - but terrifying clarity."
The Fighting 69th, as the battalion is known among its devotees, is part of the 42nd Infantry Division of the National Guard, though it is operating apart from the rest of the division during this campaign. The battalion's armory is on Lexington Avenue, and the soldiers here take great pride in the idea that they are carrying a banner for New York City.
The unit has always drawn from the immigrant population - it was formed in 1851 with several predominantly Irish militia companies - and now comprises an array of cultures and ethnicities that mirror the city's diversity. In the battalion's personnel office alone, the staff includes a Puerto Rican real estate agent raised in Lower Manhattan, a Jew from the Bronx, a white Manhattan publishing executive from Oklahoma, an Ecuadorean student living in Queens, an Italian-American from Staten Island and naturalized American citizens from Barbados and China who now live in Brooklyn.
The 69th was mobilized after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to guard ground zero, West Point, and the city's bridges, tunnels and subways. "Most of us went from 9/11 to here," said First Lt. Rafael A. Muñoz, 38, a narcotics detective in the New York Police Department. "It's a continuing saga. We're wondering when we're going to start our lives."
The battalion's first job was to ferret out insurgents and provide security in and around Taji, a rural area northwest of Baghdad. The soldiers raided homes, made arrests and searched for roadside bombs and caches of explosives.
It was dangerous work, and after the Humvee attack on Nov. 29, more casualties came quickly. On Dec. 3, Staff Sgt. Henry E. Irizarry died and three others were wounded in the blast of another huge roadside bomb. On Jan. 6, attackers detonated about 200 pounds of explosives they had buried under a dirt road, destroying a Bradley fighting vehicle and killing all seven soldiers inside, including Specialist Kenneth VonRonn, 20, of the New York National Guard, and six members of the Louisiana National Guard.
Specialist Brian Burns, 24, who works as a chef back home, was a close friend of Specialist VonRonn. The two had grown up together in Pine Bush, N.Y., and had been roommates during predeployment training at Fort Hood, Tex. Specialist Burns was part of a contingent that returned to the bomb site the following day to clean up what he calls "the parts": pieces of the vehicle and of the corpses, including his friend's. Limbs and heads had been blown clear away from torsos, which remained intact in their bulletproof vests. Specialist Burns cried for days, he said, and found that the only way of controlling the grief was to stay busy.
In all, 10 men working under the command of 69th died in the Taji area, and seven were wounded seriously enough to be removed from active duty. (Two other members of the 69th, under the command of other units, have also died in Iraq in the past three months.)
"Taji? It's one of those things when you get in the vehicle and you say, 'Is today my day?' " said Sgt. Javish J. Rosa, 25, from Washington Heights in Manhattan. "Anywhere you ride, you feel like you're going to die." The battalion was reassigned a few weeks ago to Camp Liberty, a military base in Baghdad, and was given the job of safeguarding a roughly five-mile stretch of highway linking the Baghdad airport and the green zone, the fortified compound that houses American and Iraqi government buildings. The trash-strewn highway, known as Route Irish within the military, is frequently called the most dangerous road in Iraq.
Yet the assignment elicits scorn from Lt. Col. Geoffrey J. Slack, 47, the battalion's commander. It is a boring assignment, he said. No roadside bombs, no sniper attacks, no kidnappings, no ambushes. He complained that the highway's grim reputation was overblown and that his men had been turned into "New York state troopers."
"I'm agitating to get off this mission," he groused. "It's been deathly quiet, deathly quiet."
His sentiment is shared by few of his officers and almost none of his troops. After Taji, the new assignment came as a relief to the men of the 69th.
"Quiet is good," said Capt. Michael G. Drew, a sergeant in the New York Police Department who commands the Alpha Company of the First Battalion. He has already lost two men under his command.
Colonel Slack, a resident of Mastick Beach on Long Island, and the owner of a tree-cutting company in Seaford, N.Y., is tall, lean and edgy. He moves in definitive strokes, litters his sentences with expletives and is rarely without a lighted unfiltered Camel in his mouth.
Colonel Slack goes on patrols with his troops every day - unlike most commanders of his rank or higher - and has no interest in the paperwork or ceremony that come with his job. "I like nothing more than to be in a tussle," he said.
For this, he has earned the respect of the soldiers. But they also say his actions are sometimes too risky. "I've made my peace with God," he tells them.
On a recent patrol, Colonel Slack led his convoy to the shell of a building on Route Irish. Colonel Slack calls it the Red Sniper Building because rebel snipers had used it as a roost from which to attack American patrols. He liked to stop there on his rounds and make his presence known.
After climbing to an upper floor, he was asked if he thought that returning to the building time and again might be inviting trouble, like a booby-trap bomb or a sniper attack. "Absolutely," he replied. "Nothing around here comes without the risk."
The colonel may get a fight after all. In the days after his visit to the Red Sniper Building, a roadside bomb exploded next to a battalion Humvee, causing no casualties; a patrol found an explosive known as a platter charge planted on the airport highway; and a bomb squad destroyed two 120-caliber mortar rounds buried near the base of the Red Sniper Building.
The battalion patrols Route Irish in shifts. The soldiers look for anything out of the ordinary . Every car on the side of the road is a potential car bomb, every driver under the hood tinkering with his engine a potential assassin. Every piece of trash in the road, even the corpse of a dog, could be concealing a radio-controlled explosive. They study the buildings, rooftops, windows.
Still, the soldiers say this is better than Taji - no dirt roads, a smaller area, fewer attacks.
Some draw a straight line from the Sept. 11 attacks to Iraq, regarding their involvement here as a form of payback. "It's personal," Colonel Slack said. "In some ways I think they are exorcizing that trauma."
But others say this is, in the end, only a job they are obligated to do.
Late one night, Captain Drew of Alpha Company spoke about the difficult commitment the soldiers of the 69th had made. Six weeks before he was activated, he had married and moved from Jackson Heights, Queens, to Long Island.
"The guys who are here want to be here," he said, then caught himself: "Not 'want' to be here, but they know what they've got to do."
He looked worn out; it had been a long day.
Thank you SquirrelKing.
WARSAW, Poland - Ukraine's defense minister said Thursday that his country might leave 900 troops in Iraq beyond its October deadline for pulling out, and stressed that Kiev would not abandon its mission in the Middle East country.
Ukraine on Tuesday approved the pullout of its 1,650-strong contingent in a phased withdrawal between March 15 and October. Its troops are responsible for security and training new Iraqi forces in Wasit province, which borders Iran.
"Ukraine is not leaving the coalition, but it is changing the character of its mission," Anatoly Gritsenko told reporters in Warsaw after a meeting with his Polish counterpart, Jerzy Szmajdzinski.
During his first foreign visit as defense minister, Gritsenko said a final group of some 900 troops may remain in Iraq until December, but said the issue "is still open for discussion and will be consulted with other nations."
He also said Ukraine is "prepared to equip the Iraqi army with guns, and military equipment."
Ukraine's soldiers serve in a Polish-led international force of 4,700 that covers the three Iraqi provinces of Wasit, Babil and Qadisiyah. Poland has 1,700 troops in the force.
3/2/2005, 6:00 p.m. CT President Bush talks to reporters after he received an intelligence briefing at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Va., near Washington, Thursday, March 3, 2005. He is joined by Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss at left. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Bush reassures CIA employees about agency
3/3/2005, 8:44 p.m. CT
By TOM RAUM
The Associated Press
LANGLEY, Va. (AP) — President Bush promised CIA employees on Thursday they would retain an "incredibly vital" role in safeguarding the nation's security despite a reorganization that diminishes the agency's 60-year dominance of the intelligence community.
"I know there's some uncertainty about what this reform means to the people of the CIA. And I wanted to assure them that the reforms will strengthen their efforts and make it easier for them to do their job, not harder," Bush told reporters during a morale-boosting visit to the spy agency.
Bush's trip came a day after CIA Director Porter Goss complained publicly that the new law had "a huge amount of ambiguity in it," creating confusion about his relationship with John Negroponte, Bush's nominee to the new post of national director of intelligence, and with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Negroponte, if confirmed by the Senate, would have sweeping authority over 15 different intelligence agencies.
White House aides said Bush's visit had been planned before Goss's remarks, delivered in a speech on Wednesday in Simi Valley, Calif. However, the CIA tour was added to Bush's public schedule only late Wednesday.
Out of earshot of reporters, Bush spoke to a large assembly of CIA employees, drawing loud cheers. He also received a private intelligence briefing.
In his remarks to reporters, Bush reiterated that the hunt goes on for Osama bin Laden, the terrorist blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"We spend every day gathering information to locate Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri and obviously people like Zarqawi," Bush said. Ayman al-Zawahri is bin Laden's top deputy. Musab al-Zarqawai is the top al-Qaida figure in Iraq.
"One of the reasons I came out here was to remind people that we've had great successes" in running down other al-Qaida leaders. "But there is more work to be done. ... It's a matter of time before we bring those people to justice."
With Goss at this side, Bush said he had discussed the jurisdiction issue with the CIA director "because I don't want there to be any interruption of intelligence coming to the White House, and there won't be."
He noted that Goss comes to the White House each morning to brief him personally on the latest intelligence developments, "and that, of course, will go on."
Furthermore, Bush said, "we don't even have Ambassador Negroponte confirmed yet. In other words, it's hard to implement reforms without somebody being the reformer. And so, the process is ongoing."
Negroponte's last posting was as ambassador to Iraq.
"One of the purposes of the whole process is to make sure that information flows are smooth and that efforts are coordinated," Bush said. While noting that the CIA would remain "the center of the intelligence community," he said "there's a lot of other intelligence-gathering operations around government."
"And the job of Ambassador Negroponte is to take the information and make sure it is coordinated," he said.
Bush said he came to the CIA "to assure the people here that their contribution was incredibly vital to the security of the United States, and together we've achieved a lot in securing this country."
Bush talked about the hunt for the elusive bin Laden in response to a reporter's question at the CIA, but he also brought up the subject himself earlier in the day at a swearing-in ceremony. Bush called efforts to block the terrorist leader's hope of attacking America again "the greatest challenge of our day."
Bin Laden's trail has gone cold more than three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, and Bush hardly ever utters the name of the man he once declared was wanted "dead or alive" and repeatedly promised would be caught.
But bin Laden made the headlines again this week when intelligence officials said that he has enlisted the help of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the top al-Qaida figure in Iraq, to plan attacks inside the United States.
At the ceremonial swearing-in for the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Mike Chertoff, Bush confirmed that contact between bin Laden and al-Zarqawi.
BAGHDAD, March 3 (AFP) The main Shiite alliance, which emerged victorious from landmark Iraqi elections in January, was holding key talks with Kurdish leaders Thursday on the shareout of top government posts, officials said.
The leading Kurdish coalition, which came a clear second in the election, has laid claim to the presidency and key ministries as well as a promise of support for its demands for an expanded autonomy in northern Iraq when a new constitution is drawn up in coming months.
The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, which won 140 of the 275 seats in the new national assembly, has formed a committee to discuss Kurdish demands.
"They will formally submit their demands to us today and the alliance will examine them," said Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of the leading politicians on the Shiite list.
A two-thirds majority is required in the new assembly to elect the president and two vice presidents, who will in turn appoint a prime minister, giving the Kurdistan Alliance's 77 MPs a key kingmaking role.
The two leading Kurdish politicians, Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, took a strong line ahead of Thursday's meeting.
"We will throw our lot in with the side that agrees to our demands," said Talabani, who is the Kurds' candidate for the presidency.
Barzani reiterated that the Kurds could only support a government that was committed to a federal and secular constitution, and the extension of the autonomous region in northern Iraq to cover all areas traditionally inhabited by Kurds, including the disputed northern oil centre of Kirkuk.
But Hakim rejected any attempt by the Kurds to pre-empt the newly elected assembly's discussions on a future constitution for Iraq.
"Forming a coalition with the Kurds will not be at the expense of any other group in Iraqi society," he insisted.
Hakim, perhaps the most influential Shiite politician in Iraq, warned that the question of Kirkuk should not become a bargaining chip for the Kurds in the discussions to form a government.
"Matters like this (Kirkuk) must be examined in the national assembly. That's the right forum for dealing with this issue and the people must be consulted about it."
Hakim insisted that he nonetheless remained confident that a new government could be formed soon.
"Based on the discussions that I have had and my own assessment of the situation, I am very optimistic that there is no obstacle or significant problem for convening the national assembly and forming the government," he said.
But a leading spokesman for his Shiite religious faction, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, warned it might take up to two weeks to reach agreement on the cabinet line-up.
Hamid al-Bayati told AFP that the Shiites were determined to keep the key security portfolios in their own hands.
"The major concern in Iraq is security and we think if the alliance gets the interior ministry we will be able to improve security in this country but that is subject to discussion as much as any other ministry," he said.
Unidentified U.S. soldiers patrol near the entrance to the Green Zone in the Karada district of Baghdad, Iraq Thursday, March 3, 2005. The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq topped 1,500, an Associated Press count showed Thursday after the military announced the deaths of three Americans. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
An unidentified U.S. army soldier patrols near the entrance to the Green Zone in the Karada district of Baghdad, Iraq Thursday, March 3, 2005. The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq topped 1,500, an Associated Press count showed Thursday after the military announced the deaths of three Americans. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
A local youth shakes hands with an unidentified U.S. soldier on guard in front of the operating base in the Rahimawa district of Kirkuk in northern Iraq Thursday, March 3, 2005. The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq topped 1,500, an Associated Press count showed Thursday after the military announced the deaths of three Americans. (AP Photo/Sasa Kralj)
An unidentified U.S. army soldier patrols near the entrance to the Green Zone in the Karada district of Baghdad, Iraq Thursday, March 3, 2005. The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq topped 1,500, an Associated Press count showed Thursday after the military announced the deaths of three Americans. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
U.S. and Iraqi soldiers attend the scene after two suicide car bombs exploded outside the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, Iraq, killing at least two policemen and wounding five others, according to a police official Thursday, March 3, 2005. The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq rose to 1,500, an Associated Press count showed Thursday as the military announced one of its troops was killed in action just south of the capital. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
Peshmerga militiamen of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan cross a stream during training in the mountains near Koya, Iraq Wednesday, March 2, 2005. The well-trained Kurdish Peshmerga militia is resistant to being incorporated into the main Iraqi army - a topic of discussion in recent meetings between prospective Iraqi president and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani and the prospective clergy-backed candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari. (AP Photo/ Str)
Peshmerga militiamen of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan rest during a training march in the mountains near Koya, Iraq Wednesday, March 2, 2005. The well-trained Kurdish Peshmerga militia is resistant to being incorporated into the main Iraqi army - a topic of discussion in recent meetings between prospective Iraqi president and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani and the prospective clergy-backed candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari. (AP Photo/Str)
Peshmerga militiamen of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan train in the mountains near Koya, Iraq Wednesday, March 2, 2005. The well-trained Kurdish Peshmerga militia is resistant to being incorporated into the main Iraqi army - a topic of discussion in recent meetings between prospective Iraqi president and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani and the prospective clergy-backed candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari. (AP Photo)
Iraqi judge Zuheir Al-Maliky's armored vehicle is riddled with bullets after an assassination attempt in Baghdad, March 3, 2005. Al-Maliky escaped unharmed.
Smoke billows after U.S. forces conducted a controlled detonation of unexploded ordinance collected by Explosive Ordinance Disposal Mobile Unit Two technicians near Baghdad, in this handout released on March 3, 2005.
From correspondents in Baghdad
March 03, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
IRAQ has extended the state of emergency for another 30 days from February 28, giving the Government the right to impose curfews and restrict movement around the country.
"Due to the persistent circumstances that led us to implement the state of emergency, we have decided to extend it all over Iraq except for the Kurdistan region for another 30 days," the statement signed by outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi dated Monday said. The law was been extended twice previously, with the last extension coinciding with the elections on January 30.
The emergency law was first signed on November 7 for 60 days on the eve of the US assault on the former Sunni Muslim rebel-stronghold of Fallujah.
The law gives the Prime Minister the authority to impose curfews, restrict travel between cities and set up around-the-clock courts where the Government can go to obtain arrest warrants.
The country has seen in recent days a spike in suicide car bombings with a devastating attack in the central town of Hilla on Monday claiming the lives of 118 people and wounding scores.
Staff Sergeant Carol Belle, of West Chester, stopped in at Barbara Coyle's fifth grade class to thank students for corresponding with her during her stint in Fallujah. Coyle's class began writing Belle after her niece, a student of Coyle's, told the class that her aunt was in the military.
"During current events one day, Alante mentioned that her aunt was in Fallujah," recalled Coyle. The class decided to individually correspond with Belle through emails. Their messages contained a myriad of questions and expressed sentiments of appreciation. "They thanked me for being over there," said Belle. Belle said that the emails were very helpful in boosting her morale.
"I went to answer the emails on a bad day," recalled Belle. "I read them over and over again." The questions posed in the emails were as interesting and eclectic as the questions the students asked Belle when she visited them.
"Why did you join the army?" posed one pupil. "I wanted to see the world and I had no money," said Belle. "Is it hot (in Fallujah)?" asked one student. "Yes. It is like when you open an oven after baking and the heat rushes in your face," Belle explained. "It is that hot all day, everyday."
Most days lasted between twelve to fifteen hours. Belle said that while over in Fallujah she missed her two daughters and Lifetime movies the most. When asked if war is like a video game, Belle responded that she did not play video games.
"War is nasty. There is nothing pretty about it," replied Belle. "That is probably why I don't play video games." Belle attested to a fear of the spiders that roam Fallujah, but told the students that she was more afraid of the enemy.
"They knew our schedule better than we did," said Belle. "They even knew when we got paid." Belle explained to the class that the enemy used this information to their advantage when planning attacks. One student asked Belle what is was like to serve her county.
A smiling Belle said, "It was one of the greatest jobs I have ever had." Belle hopes to be stationed in Virginia next. She plans to never leave the military. "It is my life," said Belle. Alexis Grilli can be reached at agrilli@waynesuburban.com or at (610) 363-2815.
Friday, March 4, 2005
Associated Press
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - A former police chief for the small town of Pinebluff died Thursday along with another private contractor in Iraq when a roadside bomb struck their convoy, authorities said.
Brian J. Wagoner, 30, had been police chief in the southern Moore County town of about 1,200 people for three years before going to Iraq in February 2004 to work for a private security firm. He was supposed to spend about a year in Iraq and return home this month.
Wagoner is survived by his wife, Melissa, and three children ranging in age from 3 to 7. A family friend, Beth Warren, said Melissa Wagoner had spoken to her husband Wednesday night.
"He told her how much he loved her, how much he missed the kids and loved them," Warren told the Fayetteville Observer. "He was so excited."
Jimmy A. Riddle, 53, of The Colony, Texas, also died in the attack.
Wagoner and Riddle were providing security to Tetra Tech FW Inc., which is under contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to destroy and capture enemy munitions in Iraq, spokesman Anthony Casas said in a statement. The attack occurred about 7:20 a.m. Iraq time on Thursday, he said.
Riddle, who served in the Marines, also had worked for the Texas Probation Department and several law enforcement agencies before SOC-SMG hired him in November 2003.
Wagoner served in the Army at Fort Bragg and was also a volunteer firefighter.
"Both employees performed their security responsibilities in an exemplary manner. They were respected by their peers and company management. Both will be sorely missed," Casas said in the statement.
They were in the same vehicle leading a convoy to an ammunitions storage point when the bomb detonated near Ashraf, about 35 miles north of Baghdad. Both worked for the company.
"We are obviously crushed here that they were killed," said Bob Shiells, chief administrative officer for the company.
The company employs about 155 people in Iraq who earn an average annual salary of $150,000. Wagoner and Riddle were the company's first causalities in Iraq, Shiells said.
Fellow firefighters and Pinebluff town officials described Wagoner as an organized, hardworking, affable guy.
"He was one of the easiest guys to talk to," said Capt. John House of the Fayetteville Fire Department. "He got along with everybody. I never heard him say anything bad about any body."
Pinebluff Mayor Earlene McLamb said that when the town's first and only bank robbery occurred in 2001 Wagoner worked along with state investigators to catch the robbers.
"He was quite tenacious," she said.
Bank Dismisses Foreclosure Case Against Kansas Soldier
Welter Family Gets To Keep Their House
UPDATED: 9:59 pm CST March 3, 2005
OSAWATOMIE, Kan. -- It looks like a Kansas soldier who is fighting in Iraq will be able to keep his house.
KMBC's Micheal Mahoney reported Monday that Wells Fargo Home Mortgage had threatened to foreclose on Sgt. Steve Welter's home in Osawatomie. That threat was in violation of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act, a 64-year-old federal law.
Thursday, the Welter family received good news: Wells Fargo said it would dismiss the case.
Keira Welter, Steve's wife, said she was relieved that she and her three children don't have to move.
Good morning TK and everyone.
Fri, Mar 04, 2005 (2 hours, 28 minutes ago)
BAGHDAD (AFP) - A police chief was gunned down near his home in south-central Iraq, according to the Polish military which is deployed in the region.
"Today in the morning hours, al-Budair police chief Colonel Ghaib Hadab Zarib, was killed," the military said Friday.
"His body was found near his house. The unknown attackers shot at him using an AK-rifle."
Al-Budair is 45 kilometres (35 miles) east of Diwaniyah in south-central Iraq, where Polish forces are deployed.
By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
Published on 3/4/2005
Revolutions do not stand still. They either move forward or they die. We are at the dawn of a glorious, delicate, revolutionary moment in the Middle East. It was triggered by the invasion of Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam, and televised images of 8 million Iraqis voting in a free multiparty election. Which led to the obvious question throughout the Middle East: Why Iraqis and not us?
To be sure, the rolling revolution began outside the Middle East with the Afghan elections, scandalously underplayed in the American media. That was followed by the Iraqi elections, impossible to underplay even by the American media. In between came free Palestinian elections that produced a moderate reform-oriented leadership, followed by an amazing mini-uprising in the Palestinian parliament that rejected an attempt to force corrupt cronies on the new government.
And it continued — demonstrations in Egypt for democracy, a shocking rarity that led President Mubarak to promise the first contested presidential elections in Egyptian history. And now, of course, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, where the assassination of opposition leader Rafiq Hariri led to an explosion of people power in the streets that brought down Syria's puppet-government in Beirut.
Revolution is in the air. What to do? We are already hearing voices for restraint about liberating Lebanon. Flynt Leverett, your usual Middle East expert, takes to The New York Times to oppose immediate withdrawal of Syria's occupation of Lebanon. Instead, we should be trying to “engage and empower'' the tyranny in Damascus.
These people never learn. Here we are on the threshold of what Arabs in the region are calling the fall of their own Berlin Wall, and our “realists'' want us to go back to making deals with dictators. It would be not just a blunder but a tragedy to try to rein in the revolution in Lebanon. It would betray our principles. And it would betray the people in Lebanon who have been encouraged by our proclamation of those principles.
Moreover, the Cedar Revolution promises not only to liberate Lebanon, but to transform the entire Middle East. Why? Because a forced Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon could bring down the Assad dictatorship. The road to Damascus goes through Beirut. And changing Damascus will transform the region.
No need to invade Syria
We are not talking about invading Syria. We have done enough invading and there is no need. If Assad loses Lebanon, his regime could be fatally weakened.
For two reasons: economics and psychology. Like all Soviet-style systems, the Syrian economy is moribund. It lives off Lebanese commerce and corruption. Take that away and a pillar of the Assad kleptocracy disappears. As does the psychological pillar. Dictatorships like Assad's rule by fear, which is sustained by power and the illusion of power. Control of Lebanon is the centerpiece of that illusion. The loss of Lebanon, at the hands of unarmed civilians no less, would be a deadly blow to the Assad mystique, perhaps enough to revoke his mandate from heaven.
And why is Syria so important? Because Assad has succeeded Saddam as the principal bad actor in the region. Syria, an island of dictatorship in a sea of liberalization, is desperately trying to destabilize its neighbors. The Hariri bombing in Lebanon is universally believed to be the work of Syria. The orders for the Feb. 25 Tel Aviv bombing, deliberately designed to blow up the new Palestinian-Israeli rapprochement, came from Damascus. And we know that Syria is sheltering the Baathist insurgents who are killing Iraqis and Americans by the score in Iraq.
There was a brief Damascus Spring five years ago when Syrians began demanding more freedom. Assad repressed it. Now 140 Syrian intellectuals have petitioned their own government to withdraw from Lebanon. They signed their names. The fear is lifting there too. Were the contagion to spread to Damascus, the entire region from the Mediterranean Sea to the Iranian border would be on a path to democratization.
Don't empower the tyrants
This of course could all be reversed. Liberal revolutions were suppressed in Europe 1848, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968 and Tiananmen 1989. Nothing is written. Determined and ruthless regimes can extinguish revolutions. Which is why the worst thing we can possibly do is “engage and empower'' the tyrants.
This is no time to listen to the voices of tremulousness, indecision, compromise and fear. If we had listened to them two years ago, we would still be doing oil-for-food, no-fly zones and worthless embargoes. It is our principles that brought us to this moment by way of Afghanistan and Iraq. They need to guide us now — through Beirut to Damascus.
Fri, Mar 04, 2005:
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
A growing number of U.S. troops whose body armor helped them survive bomb and rocket attacks are suffering brain damage as a result of the blasts. It's a type of injury some military doctors say has become the signature wound of the Iraq war.
Known as traumatic brain injury, or TBI, the wound is of the sort that many soldiers in previous wars never lived long enough to suffer. The explosions often cause brain damage similar to "shaken-baby syndrome," says Warren Lux, a neurologist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
"You've got great body armor on, and you don't die," says Louis French, a neuropsychologist at Walter Reed. "But there's a whole other set of possible consequences. It's sort of like when they started putting airbags in cars and started seeing all these orthopedic injuries." (Related item: TBI gallery)
The injury is often hard to recognize - for doctors, for families and for the troops themselves. Months after being hurt, many soldiers may look fully recovered, but their brain functions remain labored. "They struggle much more than you think just from talking to them, so there is that sort of hidden quality to it," Lux says.
To identify cases of TBI, doctors at Walter Reed screened every arriving servicemember wounded in an explosion, along with those hurt in Iraq or Afghanistan (news - web sites) in a vehicle accident or fall, or by a gunshot wound to the face, neck or head. They found TBI in about 60% of the cases. The largest group was 21-year-olds. (Related story: Survivors struggle to regain control)
From January 2003 to this January, 437 cases of TBI were diagnosed among wounded soldiers at the Army hospital, Lux says. Slightly more than half had permanent brain damage. Similar TBI screening began in August at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., near Washington. It showed 83% - or 97 wounded Marines and sailors - with temporary or permanent brain damage. Forty-seven cases of moderate to severe TBI were identified earlier in the year.
The wound may come to characterize this war, much the way illnesses from Agent Orange typified the Vietnam War, doctors say. "The numbers make it a serious problem," Lux says.
An explosion can cause the brain to move violently inside the skull. The shock wave from the blast can also damage brain tissue, Lux says. "The good news is that those people would have been dead" in earlier wars, says Deborah Warden, national director of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center. "But now they're alive. And we need to help them."
Symptoms of TBI vary. They include headaches, sensitivity to light or noise, behavioral changes, impaired memory and a loss in problem-solving abilities.
In severe cases, victims must relearn how to walk and talk. "It's like being born again, literally," says Sgt. Edward "Ted" Wade, 27, a soldier with the 82nd Airborne Division who lost his right arm and suffered TBI in an explosion last year near Fallujah. Today, he sometimes struggles to formulate a thought, and his eyes blink repeatedly as he concentrates.
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, March 3, 2005
Iran has warned that Gulf Arab oil would be endangered by any U.S. attack on the Islamic republic.
In the first such threat, a leading Iranian official raised the prospect of Iranian retaliation against Middle East oil exports. The official said such Gulf oil states as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia could be threatened, Middle East Newsline reported.
"An attack on Iran will be tantamount to endangering Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and – in a word – the entire Middle East oil," Iranian Expediency Council secretary Mohsen Rezai said on Tuesday.
About 40 percent of the world's crude oil shipments passes through the two-mile wide channel of the strategic Straits of Hormuz. Iranian forces are deployed at the head of the channel. Oman and the United Arab Emirates are located on the other side.
Teheran could easily block the Straits of Hormuz and use its missiles to strike tankers and GCC oil facilities, according to the new edition of Geostrategy-Direct.com. Within weeks, the rest of the world would be starving for oil and the global economy could be in danger.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that oil tanker traffic through the Straits of Hormuz will rise to about 60 percent of global oil exports by 2025.
Rezai, a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and a candidate for president, told the Fars News Agency that any Western attack on Iran would send oil prices rocketing to $70 per barrel.
He said such a significant increase in oil prices would also be sparked by international sanctions on Teheran.
4 March 2005
AMMAN - A French Muslim leader called on Friday for the immediate release of journalists held in Iraq, including a French reporter who pleaded for her life in a video tape released this week.
“We call for the immediate release of Florence Aubenas and Hussein Hanun al-Saadi (her Iraqi interpreter),” Mohamed Bechari, vice president of the French Council for the Muslim Faith (CFCM), said in Amman.
“We tell the Iraqi resistance that they should not be mistaken about who they are fighting. France has always been on the side of human dignity and the right of people to self-determination,” he told AFP.
Bechari, who also called for the release of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, said he will repeat the appeal later on Friday at a conference on Arab-European dialogue and human rights which he is attending in Jordan.
“Abductions are not part of our Arab and Muslim traditions, particularly when the victim is a woman who should be well treated.
“Arab and Muslim public opinion will never forgive such an irresponsible act,” he said.
Aubenas, a reporter for the French daily Liberation, disappeared in Baghdad on January 5 with her Iraqi interpreter. Sgrena who works for the Italian daily Il Manifesto went missing in the Iraqi capital on February 4.
Bechari was among a CFCM delegation who visited Baghdad in September to try to secure the release of French reporters Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, who were finally freed in December four months after their abduction.
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