Operation Phantom Fury--Day 153 - Now Operation River Blitz--Day 48

US troops from the 3rd Infantry Division guard one of the compounds of Baghdad's international airport with a .50 caliber machinegun. US Army Captain Douglas Hoyt from the 3rd ID said, 'I told a group Iraqi men the other day that I pray for them all every day.'(AFP/File/Romeo Gacad)

Two years on, one US soldier tells his story

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The euphoria of liberation that followed the toppling of Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003 rapidly evaporated to give way to concerns over security, health and a lack of basic daily necessities.

For US soldiers who were in the vanguard of the operation to depose the Iraqi dictator the problems of daily reality in post-Saddam Iraq have become inescapable.

US Army Captain Douglas Hoyt from the 3rd Infantry Division took part in the storming of Baghdad and returned to the capital for a new stay of duty in March.

In a rare insight into the private thoughts of a top US soldier, he told AFP in an email how Iraq has changed over the past two years and of his hopes and fears for the future.

"I drive on the streets and walk through the area now and the smells are mostly the same. I do not smell as much death, but the rest is the same. It is still a dirty Third World city.

"The power is only a little more reliable then when I was here last. Not as many generators on the streets powering the area but the power is still unreliable. The sewage is still just as bad also. I have seen some improvements in fresh water distribution. Roads are getting better. A lot of the trash is getting cleaned up, or consolidated rather.

"When I left the first time, there was still widespread looting. Everyone was a thief just trying to get their hands on as much as they could to sell or use later. There were more people begging for food and water then. Many people were homeless.

"Now two years later, I still see them as criminals. Only this time it is extortion and kidnapping for ransom, and killing for money. Everyone is just trying to get more for themselves on every level of society. I have seen very few altruistically motivated people. The few I have seen I have embraced. The people are still thankful that we ousted Sadam Hussein.

"I remember standing at a checkpoint two years ago and listening to a man tell me that he was very thankful for our ousting Saddam, but at the same time he warned me that we should not stay. He said that the people of Iraq can love us for what we did but still fight us for staying.

"I think that this is exactly what happened while I was away for two years. All the resistance to the coalition was acceptable to the people of Iraq.

Now they have taken a new perspective. Now I feel safer riding around in my Humvee and standing on the street talking to people.

"After the election they have seen our true purpose here. They realize the insurgency is no longer true Jihad. It is now only criminals being paid to kill and destroy the future freedom for Iraq.

"These men we now fight will kill a man for less then 10 dollars, and spend the money on whiskey and other non-Muslim activities. They are tired of the death. So, for now I think they will remain passive or even help rid us of this criminal insurgency. This is what they tell me.

"I have hope that by maintaining the moral high ground we can teach these people some level of altruism. I fear about when we are asked to leave by the legitimate government, and if we do not agree on a timeline to leave, we will once again be fighting the Mehdi Army and other groups.

"I hope that before we leave we can improve the standard of living for everyone. I hope they will embrace the freedom and equal rights for everyone. We shall see.

"I told a group Iraqi men the other day that I pray for them all every day. I told them this was my hope and prayer.

Iraqi children run up to a US soldier from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division on patrol to shake his hand along a street in Baghdad. US Army Captain Douglas Hoyt from the 3rd ID told AFP that he hopes he can help improved the standard of living for Iraqis.(AFP/File/Marwan Naamani)

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein listens during his first appearance before a judge in July 2004. Two years after Saddam Hussein's statue crashed to the ground in Baghdad, most Iraqis remember him as the head of a police state who ruined his country.(AFP/POOL/File/Karen Ballard)

Saddam still haunts Iraq 2 years on

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Two years after Saddam Hussein's statue crashed to the ground in Baghdad, most Iraqis remember him as the head of a police state who ruined his country and opened wounds that are still all too clearly visible.

"I will not gloat even if it would heal the open, festering wounds," vowed new President Jalal Talabani, citing a line from an Arabic poem, when asked on Thursday at his swearing-in if he had a message for Saddam.

But the Kurdish rebel leader, who fought Saddam on-and-off for nearly 30 years, did not miss the chance to describe his longtime enemy as "the most heinous of dictators and a ruthless fascist that massacred his people."

For Talabani, Saddam simply equals Halabja, the northern Kurdish village where an estimated 5,000 people died in a chemical attack in 1988.

"Saddam went too far... he's part Nazi, Fascist and Stalinist tossed in with some oriental flavours," says Bakhtiar Amin, another Kurd and Iraq's outgoing human rights minister.

On Baghdad's Rashid street, Saddam's abrupt end, like Iraq's many brutal successions last century, is on display everywhere.

"Saddam is with us every day, his legacy is right here, look around you," says Ahmed Abdul Karim, 50, an archeologist and a Shiite native of Baghdad.

The wave of frantic looting that swept through the capital in the aftermath of Saddam's fall has reduced an ancient courthouse and the legendary Dar al-Hikma library into bare skeletons.

An ornate government building dating from the times of Iraq's deposed monarchy is a bombed out garbage dump.

"Iraq was one big prison and Saddam was the warden," says Abdul Wahid Awaf, 47, a man missing half his teeth loitering outside the building.

He squats with his brother at an old townhouse that belongs to the Sunni Muslim waqf, or religious endowment.

In the nearby Al-Sarai shopping arcade, a group of Shiite merchants lament the security void and the crime and violence that still plague Iraq but revel in their post-Saddam liberties.

"My father would hush us whenever we would utter Saddam's name inside the house saying the 'walls had ears'," says Hussein Khudayr, 29, describing a time when he was forced to join the ruling Baath party just to secure a place in Baghdad University, where he studied Russian.

He recalls the ban on certain books, mobile telephones and satellite dishes and how Saddam's dreaded mukhabarat, or secret service, would monitor every student gathering or outing.

"Now we can openly criticise any politician, it is a beautiful thing!" cuts in his neighbour Abu Mohammed, 40.

But from old Rashid to old Adhamiyah, a few kilometres to the north, it is another world.

Faris al-Juburi, 50, begins to cry when he remembers how a US soldier climbed on Saddam's statute in Ferdis square tying a US flag around it before the bronze monument was chained to an armoured vehicle and torn down.

"Stop it, do not open my wounds," tells him Samir al-Duri, 35, seated with other friends on tattered wooden benches in a tea house in this predominantly Sunni Arab enclave along the Tigris.

They say Saddam was a great leader but question the wisdom of decisions like the war against Iran and the invasion of Kuwait.

"Yes he had a dictatorial streak, but a thousand Saddams and not one US soldier on Iraq's honourable soil," says a man who would only give his name as Abu Bilal, 40.

"Show me one Arab leader that did not use force to safeguard his rule," he adds to justify Saddam's oppression of the rebellious Kurds and Shiites.

They proudly recount how Adhamiyah was the last district to resist the Americans after April 9 and point to a bullet scared metal door and a gaping hole in the wall filled with bricks and brushed over clumsily with white paint.

But the sectarian and ethnic divides, which have grown deeper over the past two years, cannot explain what Saddam's fall has meant for Iraqis.

In the upper middle class neighbourhood of al-Jamiaa, on the capital's west side, Muthana al-Dulaimi, 35, a Sunni whose family hails from the restive Al-Anbar and whose members held senior positions in Saddam's regime, says they were overjoyed to see him go.

"My mother was ululating!" he says. "We had seen how sick the regime was from the inside. But my parents were quickly disillusioned with what came after Saddam, I am still hopeful."

An Israeli flag flies near buildings under construction in the West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim, just outside of Jerusalem Thursday April 7, 2005 . As Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon prepares to travel to Texas for a meeting Monday at the U.S. president's ranch, Israel's foreign minister on Saturday defended plans to expand Maaleh Adumim, the largest settlement in the West Bank, a day after President George W. Bush said he would tell Israel to honor a pledge to halt such construction. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

Sharon Expects U.S. Support on Pullout

By GAVIN RABINOWITZ, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon expects overwhelming support from President Bush before embarking on one of the most fundamental concessions in Israeli history — the evacuation of 9,500 Jewish settlers from their homes.

Sharon meets with Bush this week at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, a venue reserved for a select few world leaders. An embrace from the American leader would bolster Sharon, who faces intense internal opposition to the pullout.

As Sharon was flying to the United States on Sunday, thousands of his opponents planned a rally at a disputed holy site in Jerusalem, hoping to sabotage the withdrawal. On Saturday, Israeli troops shot and killed three teenagers in disputed circumstance in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, shattering weeks of calm and raising tensions.

Israel is set to evacuate all 21 Gaza settlements and four more in the West Bank this summer. In return, Sharon wants Bush to reaffirm his statement from last year that it is "unrealistic" to expect Israel to pull back to the borders that existed before the 1967 Mideast War, due to large Jewish settlement blocs that have been built on the territory since then.

However, Israel and Washington recently have clashed over the interpretation of this statement.

Israel insists it has the right to continue expanding these settlements. The United States opposes any further construction there, saying it threatens peace with the Palestinians and violates the internationally backed "road map" peace plan that calls for a settlement freeze.

Recently, the United States objected to an Israeli plan to add 3,650 homes to the West Bank's largest settlement, Maaleh Adumim. The plan would cut off Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. The Palestinians hope to make east Jerusalem the capital of an independent state that includes the entire West Bank.

Bush said Friday he would raise the issue with Sharon.

"What I say publicly, I say privately. And that is, the 'road map' has clear obligations on settlements and that we expect the prime minister to adhere to those road map obligations," Bush said.

But officials familiar with summit preparations said it is unlikely Bush will press Sharon too hard on the issue, fearing it could jeopardize the Gaza withdrawal plan.

"We just want to see disengagement be a success so that we can move forward to implementing the 'road map,'" one diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

Sharon's spokesman, Assaf Shariv, said: "We are not expecting any pressure."

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom suggested Saturday that Israel would continue with construction in Maaleh Adumim. When asked about the project, he told Israel Radio that expansion of settlements "never needs to be done with drums and cymbals," but he indicated the government had no intention of reversing its plans.

The Palestinians called on Bush not to let up on the settlement issue.

Tuesday's talks are expected to focus on issues the two leaders agree on.

Sharon has said he will not begin talks on a final peace deal until Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas cracks down on militant groups and disarms them. Abbas refuses to do so and has instead tried to co-opt them.

The Palestinians, who seek a quick resumption of negotiations, say Sharon is simply looking for excuses to avoid negotiations. They fear he will freeze the process after the Gaza withdrawal and use the standstill to further tighten his grip on Jerusalem and the West Bank.

"We expect that President Bush will keep his vision for a two-state solution alive by having Mr. Sharon accept a full cessation of settlement activities. This is really the most important thing for us," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Bush agrees with Israel that Abbas must do more to rein in militants, and U.S. officials say the peace plan must progress step by step, without skipping stages.

Erekat expressed concern that Israel would not progress after the Gaza withdrawal.

"The focus must be on the day after," he said.

Bush has also said he would talk with Sharon "about the need to work with the Palestinian government, President Abbas, to facilitate success, to enhance success" as Israel turns Gaza over to the Palestinians.

Sharon initially wanted to withdraw from Gaza unilaterally but now seeks Palestinian input, including guarantees that Israeli troops and settlers will not come under fire during evacuation.

Talks also are expected to focus on recent developments in the Middle East and Bush's push for democracy in the region. Iran's nuclear aspirations are also of great concern to both countries.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who visited Washington last week, sounded out the administration on U.S. economic support for the pullout, which Israel estimates will cost $1 billion. The director general of Israel's Finance Ministry was to accompany Sharon, Israel Radio said.

The United States would find it difficult to contribute money for settler compensation, but analysts said Washington might be willing to contribute anyway.

"The U.S. never supported the settlement movement, it's considered an obstacle to peace, and therefore if Sharon, on this trip to Crawford, gets American assistance for the pullout, it'll be for ... military redeployment and not for settler compensation," said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East policy.

Israeli Troops Kill 3 Palestinian Teens

Islamic Jihad Says Truce with Israel Still in Force

Killings of Three Palestinian Youths Strain Truce

Gun Runners Shot & Killed in Rafiah Area

A former top minister in Saddam Hussein's cabinet, Tareq Aziz, shown here in March 2003, will never testify against the ex-Iraqi president when he goes on trial in Baghdad along with other members of the toppled regime, his lawyer said.(AFP/File/Ahmad al-Rybaye)

Former Iraqi minister Tareq Aziz will never turn on Saddam at trial: lawyer

PARIS (AFP) - A former top minister in Saddam Hussein's cabinet, Tareq Aziz, will never testify against the ex-Iraqi president when he goes on trial in Baghdad along with other members of the toppled regime, his lawyer said.

"Tareq Aziz told me that he would never attack Saddam Hussein during his trial, that it would not be right for him to do that," his attorney Badi Aref Izzat said in an interview in Paris.

"But if he is freed, he will write a book where he would tell what he knows. He knows he is innocent. Tareq Aziz is weak physically but strong politically," Izzat said.

An English-speaking Christian, Aziz, 68, was a former deputy prime minister and foreign minister who became the best known spokesman of Saddam's regime to the outside world.

He surrendered to American forces on April 24, 2003, shortly after the invasion and the overthrow of the regime.

Izzat, an Iraqi, said he had met with Aziz three times in the two years, including twice last month when "he was in bad physical shape, tired also by the interrogations of the UN commission" investigating alleged misuse of Iraq's oil-for-food program."

He also said Aziz was "completely cut off from the world. I saw him in pyjamas."

From his cell Aziz can hear the sounds of the fighting. "His American jailers tell him each time that they are explosions organized by the American army to blow up weapons," Izzat said.

At their last meeting, Aziz, one of only two Christian ministers in Saddam's cabinet, gave his lawyer a written appeal for help to take to the Vatican, where Aziz had often been received in the past by Pope John Paul II, who died last week.

The appeal, shown to AFP, said in part that Aziz and the other prisoners were isolated from their families, with no contact, no telephone calls and no letters.

"We have the right to just treatment, just investigations and finally a just trial," it said.

Aziz is being investigated for crimes against humanity and made an appearance in court in July with 10 other former regime officials and Saddam as part of a preliminary hearing.

Saddam, who is being held at a maximum security prison on a US base near Baghdad airport, appeared defiant at that hearing.

Investigative judges are still working to build cases against Saddam, his first cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid and other senior members of the former ruling party.

The ex-dictator's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan and three others are expected to be the first to go on trial some time in mid-April, according to the Iraqi Special Tribunal.

You still following suspicious cameramen in Iraq? Would be curious to find out about this CBS guy.

You know that I am. I was going to post the latest before I break away and do some chores. So here ya go!!

U.S. Holds CBS Cameraman In Iraq

Was Standing Next To Alleged Insurgent During Shootout

Apr 9, 2005 9:32 am US/Eastern BAGHDAD (CBS) A cameraman carrying CBS press credentials was detained in Iraq earlier this week on suspicion of insurgent activity, the U.S. military said Friday.

The cameraman suffered minor injuries Tuesday during a battle between U.S. soldiers and suspected insurgents, the military said. He was standing next to an alleged insurgent who was killed during the shootout, the statement said.

The military issued a statement then saying the cameraman was shot because his equipment was mistaken for a weapon.

But on Friday, the military said the cameraman was detained because there was probable cause to believe he posed "an imperative threat to coalition forces."

"He is currently detained and will be processed as any other security detainee," the statement said.

CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports the military became suspicious when they examined the contents of the camera and found pictures of what appears to be the aftermath of four separate attacks by insurgents using IEDs, improvised explosive devices. The footage, taken so soon after the attacks, suggest the cameraman had to have foreknowledge that the attacks would take place, officials told Stewart. The scenes and timing of the taping are very disturbing, said one official.

Reporting from Baghdad, CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan told Bob Schieffer that CBS News is cooperating with military investigators. The cameraman came with good recommendations, Cowan said.

"From every indication we had, the work he had done for us the past three months has been exceptional,'' Cowan said. He noted the all the networks employ locals in Iraq that help get footage that U.S. photographers couldn't get.

A spokesman for Task Force Freedom, Capt. Mark Walter, said the reporter suffered minor wounds and was with "a number of people" involved in the shootout.

Walter said the reporter was detained immediately after the incident, in part because of statements from witnesses to the battle.

Officials are investigating the man's previous activities as well as "his alleged support of anti-Iraqi insurgency activities," the statement said.

On Friday, CBS News issued a statement saying the cameraman had been working with the network for about three months, and had been referred by a trusted source with whom CBS has had a two-year relationship.

"It is common practice in Iraq for Western news organizations to hire local cameramen in places considered too dangerous for Westerners to work effectively. The very nature of their work often puts them in the middle of very volatile situations,'' the statement said.

CBS News Video

Bob Schieffer talks with Lee Cowan in Iraq and Jim Stewart in Washington about a CBS freelance cameraman who was wounded by U.S. fire, and is now under government detention.

Curveball redux (BAD INTELLIGENCE)

Have I got a spy story for you.

I refer to the recent report by the presidential commission that has been examining the ability of America's spy agencies to find foreign weapons of mass destruction. Read it online at www.wmd.gov/report and head straight for Chapter One, the case study on Iraq, which should make your blood boil. It states that our intel agencies' prewar take on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was ``dead wrong.''

The data on Saddam Hussein's supposed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs -- data cited repeatedly by President Bush and other top officials -- were ''either worthless or misleading'' and were ``riddled with errors.''

Worse, there was a mind-set that put forward hypotheses on WMDs -- then refused to consider evidence that challenged preconceived conclusions. The process was ''driven by assumptions'' with ''inadequate validation and vetting of dubious intelligence sources.'' Skeptics who tried to question flimsy evidence on key weapons issues were slapped down by senior CIA or Defense Intelligence Agency officials.

Case in point: Iraq's germ-war labs on wheels. A graphic description of these shockers was the centerpiece of Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003. It was based almost entirely on evidence from a single source -- ''Curveball.'' The only problem: Curveball was a liar.

An Iraqi defector angling for a U.S. green card, Curveball was also the brother of a top aide to Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon's favorite Iraqi exile. Coincidentally, a source who corroborated Curveball's story was provided to the Pentagon by Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. This source, too, was a fraud.

On the eve of Powell's speech, a senior intel official called CIA Director George Tenet to warn that Curveball's evidence was dicey. 'Mr. Tenet replied with words to the effect of `yeah, yeah' and that he was exhausted,'' according to testimony in the report. Tenet, of course, cannot recall the conversation.

The fabricated story of the germ labs remained the centerpiece of Powell's speech.

The Curveball saga is a crucial read because it leaves a reader with the sick but inevitable feeling that it's bound to happen again. Despite its frank detail, this report -- like the others on intelligence failures in Iraq -- has pulled its punches. It blames the intel community for poor analysis, but it lets the political appointees off the hook.

The commission states that not one intelligence analyst blamed political pressure for forcing him or her to skew or alter a report.

''That said,'' the commissioners add, ``it is hard to deny the conclusion that intelligence analysts worked in an environment that did not encourage skepticism about the conventional wisdom.''

No kidding! In an environment where, according to news reports, CIA analysts felt pressured by Vice President Cheney, where the Pentagon set up an Office of Special Plans to do an end run around the CIA, why would we not expect pressure to corroborate White House beliefs on WMDs?

Last year, the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on America's prewar intelligence described how such pressure affected the Curveball case. When the one intel agent who had met Curveball tried to warn the CIA about him, a senior official replied (by e-mail): ``Let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn't say, and the powers that be probably aren't interested in whether Curveball knows what he is talking about.''

That's pretty scary when you consider that the powers that be must decide how to handle other nuclear powers or wanna-bes. The commission report says that our intelligence agencies know ''disturbingly little'' about the capabilities and intentions of Iran and North Korea.

Curveball redux, here we come?

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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