Posted on 10/21/2003 6:48:00 PM PDT by TexKat
BAGHDAD: A sniffer dog search sparked an anti-US protest in Baghdad and pipelines were set ablaze in north of the capital yesterday.
"Down, down USA," shouted thousands of government employees angered by the detention of a woman who refused to be searched by US soldiers using a sniffer dog at the Oil Ministry in Baghdad.
Soldiers fired a few shots in the air to disperse the workers from the Oil Ministry and nearby ministries.
"I have been coming here for 27 years and now they (Americans) are searching us with dogs. We are Muslims," Saadiya Ahmad, an oil ministry engineer said.
"We don't just want the dogs to leave. We want the dogs who are holding the dogs to leave, every last one of them," said one employee, Nazir Mohammed.
A man who gave his name as Sabeeh said troops had handcuffed a woman emplo-yee and made her stand in the sun for an hour because she had refused the search.
In the north, pipelines that feed a Baghdad refinery and power station were ablaze, a day after a sabotage attack.
Iraqi Lieutenant-Colonel Khalid Mohammed Rashid, who works for a force protecting key installations, said an explosion had set fire to four pipelines just south of the Baiji oil refinery, 190km north of Baghdad.
"What happened was sabotage," he said.
The top US civilian official in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said yesterday he expected "important contributions" at this week's donors conference in Madrid, particularly from international financial institutions.
"I think we're going to have a successful conference at Madrid. We'll find that a number of countries will make important contributions," Bremer said.
"I think we'll find the international financial institutions will come forward with pretty good contributions," Bremer said.
Pledges that have emerged so far have fallen short of what is needed to rebuild Iraq.
US President George W Bush may veto a bill that would provide some reconstruction money to Iraq as loans instead of grants, according to the text of a letter from the White House's budget office.
"Given the critical need, the administration strongly opposes the Senate provision that would convert a portion of this assistance to a loan mechanism. If this provision is not removed, the president's senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill," Joshua Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in a letter addressed to several lawmakers.
Meanwhile, at least 28 soldiers have failed to report for flights back to Iraq after two weeks of leave in the US or to call ahead with an explanation, military spokesmen said.
The military sought to play down the no-shows, noting that they represented only a tiny fraction of the more than 1,300 Iraq-based soldiers who have been given two weeks of leave since the programme began September 25.
"I don't think anybody here at this level is in a panic over the situation," said Major Pete Mitchell, a spokesman for the US Central Command.
Nazir Mohammed = a marked man.
The sooner we can get the job done, the sooner we will leave. Making it more difficult only means we will be there longer. Straighten up and act right.
Smile Saadiya and be happy that your heart is still beating and the dog is sniffing a live body. You could be a dead muslim.
For one, the police in Portland, Oregon swear that Harley is even better than a dog at tracking down narcotics on the city streets, according to the National Performance Review which reported:
"Harley has been such a success that the Portland police want to buy some more potbellies, and to train them to detect guns as well as drugs. The whole project would cost about $25,000. But so far they haven't found any federal anti-drug money available for training pigs.
"When the White House found out that Harley was denied training funds because he was a pig, it acted swiftly—and designated Harley an honorary dog.
And that's precisely the crux of the problem.
The more muslims I read about the more I like my dog...
YOU HAVE BEEN CONQUERED BY USA! NOW DEAL WITH IT!
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