Replies

21 April 2005

BAGHDAD — Iraq may finally get a new government today, its president said, offering an end to nearly three months of stalemate since a historic election.

But the shooting of 19 Iraqi soldiers at a soccer stadium and President Jalal Talabani’s account of 50 bodies being hauled from a river near Baghdad showed that violence persists despite a relative lull perceived after the January 30 vote.

At a news conference after meetings with senior Iraqi leaders, Talabani said he hoped Iraq’s new cabinet would be finalised by yesterday.

He also said 50 bodies, believed to be those of Shia hostages seized in a town near Baghdad on Saturday, had been found in the Tigris River south of the capital.

In other violence, rebels shot dead 19 National Guardsmen in a soccer stadium in Haditha, about 200km northwest of Baghdad, after they took them prisoner, witnesses said.

Three car bombings in Baghdad killed at least two Iraqi civilians and wounded eight. And two car bombs struck the entrance of a US and National Guard base in Ramadi, a hotbed of resistance about 100km west of Baghdad.

A new democratically elected government in power could ease Iraqis’ widespread frustration about the weeks of horse-trading even as rebel violence has revived.

“We want to announce it (the new government) as soon as possible,” Talabani told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi and Abdul Aziz Al Hakim, leader of Shia Muslim party SCIRI.

“We are hoping it will happen tomorrow afternoon,” he said.

Iraqi leaders have been negotiating over the cabinet since January’s elections that brought a Shia majority to power.

But disagreements over distribution of ministries and on how the Sunni minority should be brought into the political process have held up the formation of the government.

The delay has created a climate of indecision, officials say, and let momentum against the insurgency built up by the elections to slip away.

Much of the squabbling has focused on the Oil, Interior and Defence ministries. The Interior Ministry, responsible for internal security, is expected to go to a member of SCIRI, the main party in the Shia alliance.

US and Iraqi officials have worried that delays in forming the government will hurt the battle against insurgents. A key concern is whether the new government headed by Shias like Jaafari would change tack and do away with units like the Sunni-led commandos that have shown results against rebels.

Talabani said more than 50 bodies believed to be those of hostages held in Madaen, an agricultural town about 45km southeast of Baghdad, had been taken from the Tigris.

“We have the full names of those who were killed and those criminals who committed these crimes,” said Talabani, a 71-year-old Kurdish leader.

Shia officials said on Saturday that Sunni militants had taken around 50 people hostage in Madaen and threatened them with death. Later they said the number could be as high as 150.

Iraqi security forces raided the town but said they had found almost no evidence that anyone had been taken hostage or that there were any gunmen there.

Later, Shia officials said that dozens of bodies had been found in the Tigris south of Madaen, but a Reuters cameraman who visited the location found no evidence of any bodies.

Tensions have been running high between Shias and the once-dominant Sunni community since the election, particularly in relation to events such as the Madaen hostage crisis, which many Sunnis dismissed as a fabrication.

The killings of the National Guards in Haditha followed clashes in the area between National Guards, US troops and rebels. Iraq’s National Guard, which is at the forefront of the battle against the insurgency, has been repeatedly targeted.

Two Iraqis were killed and five wounded in a car bomb attack on a US military convoy in western Baghdad, police said. A car bomb targeting a police convoy wounded three Iraqis in southwest Baghdad, and a third bomb outside a police station damaged police vehicles.

A bomb killed two US soldiers and wounded four late on Tuesday while they patrolled near Baghdad’s airport road.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts talk before a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on April 19. Myers was presented the "Kansan of the Year" Award by the Kansas Society of Washington, D.C. Photo by Staff Sgt. D. Myles Cullen, USAF

Myers Receives 'Kansan of the Year' Award

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 20, 2005 – The values of the heartland are the same as those of the U.S. military and went a long way toward keeping the nation’s highest-ranking military officer in the Air Force.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers was named the “Kansan of the Year” by the Kansas Society of Washington, D.C., April 19. He follows in the steps of such distinguished Kansans as Sen. Robert Dole, Kansas City Royals Hall of Famer George Brett, Washington Redskins running back John Riggins, and TV broadcaster Jim Lehrer.

Most of the Kansas congressional delegation attended the event.

The chairman was visibly happy to be among Kansans, and the ones in the crowd were notably pleased to honor the chairman and his family.

From the Kansas sunflower centerpieces on the table to the country band doing the entertaining, the night was a celebration of all things Kansas. “It’s fun to come to an oasis of Kansans in the middle of Washington, D.C.,” Myers said. “I think being a Kansan is a special thing. It’s certainly special to me. It’s part of the heritage that I’m proudest of.”

The chairman said that, counting ROTC time, he has spent 44 years in uniform. “One of the reasons I stayed in the service so long was the military culture,” he said.

He said the military runs on values like integrity, loyalty and selflessness. Personnel from all regions of the United States bring a “wonderful varied background of cultures” to the military. “To my mind, when you come from the heartland, you bring a real common-sense approach to problems, because you have to be practical to survive on the prairie,” he said. “We inherited that from the folks who went before us.”

Myers told the crowd that he hadn’t planned on making the Air Force a career. He was going to fulfill his commitment and get out, “probably (to go) back to the family business in Kansas City,” he said.

But the military personnel he served with kept him energized and motivated to serve. “All of us from the prairie were born to take responsibility and, if needed, to lead,” he said. “Leadership is what makes anything strong, be it a business or a country. This is a time when we need all the leaders we can get. Never have we been confronted by a greater peril than the threat posed by terrorism.”

Myers addressed a purely Kansas rivalry also. The chairman, a 1965 graduate of Kansas State University, poked fun at graduates of rival Kansas University. He said he was the “black sheep of the family” because everyone else in his family went to KU.

During the reception period before the dinner, the chairman and his family met with members of the society. The Kansans did their best to dispel outsiders’ preconceptions about the state.

First, they said, the line from the musical “South Pacific” that goes, “I’m as corny as Kansas in August,” is wrong. Kansas is covered in wheat, not corn. And if Dorothy were really singing about going over the rainbow, she would want to go to Wichita, not Oz.

The chairman thanked the society. “I appreciate the honor of this award,” he said. “I’m very proud to be from Kansas. Most of all I’m proud to wear this uniform and serve alongside a whole bunch of really great servicemen and women.