Operation Phantom Fury--Day 288 - Now Operations River Blitz; Matador--Day 183

In Letter, Saddam Casts Self As Martyr

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. (HO/Iraq Special Tribunal/Handout/Reuters)

Last modified Sunday, August 21, 2005 9:05 PM PDT

By JAMAL HALABY

AMMAN, Jordan - Facing trial and possible execution for the massacre of his fellow Muslims, ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein sought in a letter published Sunday to cast himself as a martyr, writing that his "soul and existence is to be sacrificed" for the Arab cause.

A Jordanian friend received the letter through the International Committee of the Red Cross, which verified its authenticity and said it had been censored by Saddam's American captors in Iraq.

"My soul and my existence is to be sacrificed for our precious Palestine and our beloved, patient and suffering Iraq," said the letter, published in two Jordanian newspapers and made available to The Associated Press

The Jordanian Arab Baath Socialist Party, which made the letter public, said its recipient refused to be identified. It was believed to have been the first letter sent by Saddam to someone other than a family member since the ousted leader was captured in December 2003.

Iraqi authorities are preparing about a dozen cases against Saddam and his former lieutenants but have completed the preliminary investigation of only one _ the 1982 massacre of Shiite townspeople in Dujail, north of Baghdad, after an assassination attempt against the Iraqi leader.

That case is expected to go to trial in the fall, although no date has been set. Government spokesman Laith Kubba said in an interview Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition" that the first trial might start within six weeks.

Saddam and his co-defendants could face the death penalty if convicted. Others indicted in the Dujail massacre are Barazan Ibrahim, intelligence chief at the time and Saddam's half brother; former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan; and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, at the time a Baath party official in Dujail.

The letter's defiant tone, flowery Arabic and support for Palestine were similar to old speeches by Saddam.

Rana Sidani, a spokeswoman for the ICRC's Iraq delegation in Amman, said the Red Cross had confirmed the message's authenticity and the letter had been "censored by the detaining authorities before being handed over to the ICRC for distribution."

Sidani said Saddam and other such political detainees to whom the Red Cross has access are normally only allowed to write letters to family members and loved ones and in exceptional cases to friends. She said the Red Cross messages are not meant for publication.

Facing possible execution if found guilty in upcoming trials, Saddam's letter appeared to include musings on his mortality.

"Life is meaningless without the considerations of faith, love and inherited history in our nation," the letter said.

"It is not much for a man to support his nation with his soul and all he commands because it deserves it since it has given us life in the name of God and allowed us to inherit the best," he wrote in a what appeared a call to Arabs to follow in his footsteps.

The Jordanian Baath Party, which espouses ideology similar to Saddam's now-defunct Baath Party, has no links to Iraq.

Party Secretary General Tayseer Homsi said the letter's recipient was not a party member but an "independent Jordanian political figure who wished to remain anonymous." He handed the letter over two days ago, Homsi said. "He's an old friend of Saddam, he's not a member of our party nor is he a party functionary."

Saddam's two daughters, Raghad and Rana, have lived in Amman since fleeing the U.S. invasion two years ago.

In addressing his correspondent, Saddam said: "My brother, love your people, love Palestine, love your nation, long live Palestine."

The PLO supported Iraq during the first Gulf War after Saddam invaded Kuwait.

At the start of the Palestinian uprising against Israel, Saddam paid $15,000 to families of Palestinian suicide bombers, later raising it to $25,000.

The money was believed to have been channeled through the Arab Liberation Front, a Baath party department in the Palestinian areas. Saddam also issued checks of $10,000 to families of Palestinians killed in other than suicide operations.

During Saddam's rule, Palestinian students were exempted from university fees and the government built a housing complex in the Baladiyat neighborhood, about 10 miles east of Baghdad, where hundreds of them lived.

In other areas, the government rented apartments on behalf of the Palestinians paying little money to landlords who did not dare to object.

Associated Press(AP)

New Birth of Iraqi Air Forces

A C-130 Hercules transport plane is parked on the tarmac at the Ali Base. Iraq's new air force is being rebuilt from the ground up at this sprawling desert base outside Nasiriyah, once Saddam Hussein's center of air operations against Iran during the 1980-1988 war.(AFP/Carlos Hamann)

Updated on 21/08/2005 - 16:34:45

The base, which is close to Al Naseria city (375 km southeast of Baghdad), has represented the vital vein for the air forces during the war, which the former regime has launched against Iran (1980-1988).

At present, squadron 23 of US air forces is in the base. The base represents a center for training Iraqi pilots and technicians on three transport planes, (Hercules – S130).

These planes that were offered by the Americans represent the core of the new Iraqi air forces. The number is unidentified for security reasons. It is worth mentioning that they include 12 surveillance planes, spread all over Iraq. 109 Iraqis, among the senior pilots with long experience, are subjugated to training on flying and maintaining the Hercules planes. The youngest pilot is 32, while others are in their 60s.

A first group has received training on the aid planes in Jordan, by the end of 2004, and then moved to Ali Base in January 2005. They are supposed to finish their training next January. There is another group that received the same training and is supposed to finish their training in Mar or June 2006. An officer, with grey hair, who has 18 years of experience on his plane, said, "We all love our country and wish to see it develop again with pride."

Each Hercules plane has a crew of 5 persons, a pilot, a co-pilot, an engineer, a specialist in air navigation and someone in charge of the cargo. It also desires to have 53 land employees for maintaining the planes, engines and frames. The American trainers hope that their Iraqi students represent a new generation of pilots in the future.

Geid McGray, the American officer in charge of training on maintenance, said, "We urge them to train others. They have to be in charge within a maximum deadline of next summer as we would be leaving then." He concluded, "Some youth should volunteer now."

Iraq Deployment

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Paul Viglienzone, an Army Reservist assigned to Alpha Company, 451st Civil Affairs Battalion, talks with local merchants at the Al Sahiah Market in the city of Najaf, Iraq, Aug. 9, 2005. Al Sahiah Market is a coalition forces built market to provide local merchants a place to sell their goods. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jeromy K. Cross)

U.S. Air Force Capt. Eric Springer drives his Humvee as during an operation to provide local Bedouins much-needed food and clothing at Ali Base, Iraq, July 27, 2005. Springer is assigned to the 407th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron, Ali Base, Iraq. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Maurice Hessel)

U.S. Army Spc. James Arnold, assigned to 2nd Squadron, 278th Regimental Combat Team, talks with a local boy in Samaga Olia Village, Iraq, July 29, 2005. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Andrew Garnett)

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Allan Jeleniewski posts guard on top of a building overlooking the Forward Operating Base Scunion transfer ceremony in the Diyala Province, Iraq, July 31, 2005. Task Force Badger relinquished control of Forward Operating Base Scunion from coalition control to the newly flagged 3rd Battalion, 2nd Iraqi Army Brigade. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Suzanne M. Day)

U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Alejandro N. Salazar, an embarkation specialist assigned to Marine Wing Support Squadron 371, thoroughly washes down and prepares retrograde gear at Camp Taqaddum, Al Anbar, Iraq, Aug. 2, 2005. The gear is being prepared for customs and other joint inspections required in order to return the gear back to the United States. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Marsha N. Garcia)

U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Jacqueline Alcantara, a supply warehouse chief, helps her Marines with their weekly cleaning of the supply warehouse aboard Camp Taqaddum, Al Anbar, Iraq, Aug. 2, 2005. Alcantara is assigned to Marine Wing Support Squadron 371, Headquarters and Support Company, based out of Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Marsha N. Garcia)

U.S. Army Pfc. Pedro Chavez, with 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, 256th Brigade Combat Team, searches the interior of a van as part of a traffic strop during a mounted patrol in West Baghdad, Iraq, on Aug. 8, 2005. The patrol consists of traffic stops, houses raids, and planted bomb searches. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jorge A. Rodriguez)

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Paul Viglienzone, a reservist assigned to Alpha Company 451st, Civil Affairs Battalion, talks with local merchants at the Al Sahiah Market in Najaf, Iraq, Aug. 9, 2005. Al Sahiah Market is a coalition forces built market to provide local merchants a place to sell their goods. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jeromy K. Cross)

U.S. Army Sgt. Eric J. Lazo, a reservist assigned to Alpha Company, 451st Civil Affairs, talks with local medical professionals about their supplies in Al Manathra, Iraq, Aug. 11, 2005. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jeromy K. Cross)

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Richard Gentry (left) and Georgian soldier Sgt. Simsie adjust a tow cord from a Humvee while assisting an Iraqi citizen's vehicle over the Diyala River bridge near Baqubah, Iraq, Aug. 12, 2005. Gentry is assigned to Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment. (Defense Dept. photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Suzanne M. Day)

Philippine rebels linking up with foreign jihadists

22 Aug 2005 04:40:07 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Manny Mogato

MANILA, Aug 22 (Reuters) - A lethal mix of militant groups is emerging in the southern Philippines, a senior police intelligence official said, warning of attacks as foreign and local jihadists share resources, talents and capabilities.

The intelligence official, who declined to be identified, said foreign Islamic militants, mostly Indonesians, were building alliances with several homegrown Muslim rebels to survive government offensives on the southern island of Mindanao.

Since July, Philippine troops backed by U.S. aerial surveillance vehicles have been combing coastal and mountain villages in Maguindanao province for about 30 rebels from the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group, who are thought to be operating with a handful of Indonesian militants.

"These militants are now crossing organisational lines to exchange and share manpower, expertise and resources," the intelligence official told Reuters late on Sunday.

"If governments in the region are cooperating to eliminate these threats, we are now seeing that terrorists are also sharing their 'best practices' to fight back".

A senior U.S. diplomat in Manila drew an angry reaction from government leaders earlier this year when he said Mindanao risked turning into "an Afghanistan situation".

The Philippine official said there were intelligence reports that Rajah Solaiman Revolutionary Movement, a group of radical Muslim converts, had merged with the Abu Sayyaf group led by Khaddafy Janjalani.

This, he said, had increased the threat of attacks in Manila because most of the converts were based around the capital.

Janjalani, long the subject of manhunt operations on Mindanao, is also thought to have developed close links with Indonesian militants belonging to different jihadist groups, including Jemaah Islamiah (JI).

A classified security report shown to Reuters said JI instructors had taught about 60 of Janjalani's followers how to handle crude bombs fashioned out of unexploded mortar rounds.

JI has been blamed for several of the deadliest attacks in southeast Asia, including the October 2002 Bali bombing that nearly killed 200 people, mostly Australian tourists.

UNDER PRESSURE

Philippine officials said foreign militants were forced to seek out other Muslim groups in Mindanao because the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's largest Muslim rebel group, which is in talks with the government, started pushing them to leave.

But they said rogue MILF elements continued to protect the foreign militants, allowing them to hide in a marshy area in Maguindanao province.

"We always believed the leadership of MILF is determined to cut its ties with these militants," said Rodolfo Garcia, a member of the government's peace panel negotiating with the MILF.

The government has said it will resume informal talks with the MILF within a month in Malaysia on a proposed ancestral homeland for Muslims in Mindanao to help end the conflict that has killed more than 120,000 people since the late 1960s.

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Leaders in Iraq Report Progress on Constitution

By DEXTER FILKINS

Published: August 22, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Monday, Aug. 22 -Iraqi leaders moved to the brink of agreement on a new constitution on Sunday, solving several contentious issues but still struggling with the potentially explosive questions of Shiite autonomy and the role of Islam in family disputes and the judiciary.

The Iraqis said they were hoping to finish the constitution by the end of the day on Monday, a deadline that they have already extended once. They scheduled a meeting of the National Assembly for Monday evening, when they hoped to present a finished constitution for approval.

Negotiators said they had agreed on a formula to share Iraq's oil wealth, which had been one of the most difficult issues. The agreement was being shepherded with the help of American officials, and especially the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. After more than 12 hours of talks on Sunday, an American official said a deal was almost in hand.

"It looks like all the major issues are resolved, and we hope tomorrow we will work out the remaining details," said the American official, who, because of the diplomatic delicacy, spoke on condition of anonymity.

But a number of important obstacles remained, and Iraqi leaders, including Laith Kubba, an aide to Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, raised the possibility that they would have to extend the deadline once again.

The most sensitive of unresolved issues revolved around the role of Islam, which the constitution writers have designated as "a main source of legislation" in the new constitution.

Two critical questions have not yet been resolved: whether to allow clerics to sit on the Supreme Court, and how much authority clerics will have in resolving family disputes like divorce and inheritance. Maintaining secular authority over family matters is especially important to secular Iraqi women, who fear that Islamic judges will take away the rights they now enjoy under Iraqi law.

A potentially more intractable problem in the long run was the disaffection of Sunni leaders, who have been largely excluded from the deliberations during the past week. The constitution has been written almost entirely by Shiite and Kurdish leaders, who said they had decided to leave the Sunnis out because they were being too inflexible.

The support of the Sunni leaders is not necessary to complete the constitution. Because the Sunni community largely boycotted the election in January, it has only a handful of legislators in the 275-member National Assembly, which has authority to approve the document.

On Sunday, Sunni leaders complained of being locked out of the drafting process. They demanded that they be included and, if they were not, that the constitution be defeated.

"There is still no active and serious coordination so far," 15 Sunni leaders said in a joint statement. "This constitution needs to be written by consensus, not simply a majority vote."

The agreement of the Sunni participants is viewed as crucial in helping to placate the larger Sunni Arab population, which formed the backbone of support for Saddam Hussein's government and provides the bulk of the manpower for the guerrilla insurgency. Sunni Arabs make up about 20 percent of Iraq's population.

Shiite and Kurdish leaders said that after they had agreed on a draft, they would show the constitution to the Sunni leaders on Monday.

The Shiites and the Kurds said they would consider Sunni views, but they said they would only bend so far to accommodate them.

The Sunnis, for instance, have been adamant in their opposition to granting autonomy to the Shiite-majority areas. Leaders of the Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population, are pressing for the establishment of an autonomous region in southern Iraq. The region would consist of 9 of Iraq's 18 provinces and contain its richest oil fields.

Sunni leaders argue that granting autonomy to the Shiites, along with the Kurds, who already have it, could cripple the Iraqi state.

Shiite and Kurdish leaders said they intended to include language in the constitution that would allow individual provinces to vote on autonomy. But they said they were discussing a compromise that could make the idea more palatable to the Sunnis.

Ahmad Chalabi, the deputy prime minister, said Shiite and Kurdish leaders were discussing language that would limit the size of autonomous regions to three provinces each. "The idea is to satisfy the Sunnis so they don't go berserk," Mr. Chalabi said in an interview at his home in Baghdad. "They are afraid of a super-Shia region."

But Mr. Chalabi, who is a Shiite, warned that the Shiites and the Kurds would not compromise on their desire for autonomous regions, even if the Sunnis withdrew their support.

"How many votes have they got?" he said of the Sunnis. "The majority of Iraqis want federalism."

Mr. Chalabi and other Iraqi leaders said they had agreed to a formula to share Iraq's oil and gas wealth, which provides the bulk of the government's revenue. Under the agreement, money earned from oil and gas deposits would be shared among the provinces according to population.

The central government would control the oil and gas extracted from existing fields, and regional governments would be allowed to control fields that are not currently being worked.

The control of oil is considered critical to the future of the Iraqi state, in part because most of the country's known deposits exist in southern Iraq, where the Shiites predominate, and in northern Iraq, the home of the Kurds. For the most part, Sunni Arabs do not inhabit regions known to contain much oil.

Iraqi leaders said they had yet to agree on details for resolving the disputed status of the northern city of Kirkuk. They have agreed in principle to reverse Mr. Hussein's "Arabization" policy, which involved the expulsion of tens of thousands of Kurds and the resettlement of tens of thousands of Arabs. Kurdish leaders are pushing for a timetable to carry out that process, and for a referendum to determine whether the city would be brought under the control of the Kurdish regional government.

The most difficult issues still unresolved dealt with the role of Islam. One was the question of whether to allow clerics on the Supreme Court; under one proposal being discussed, four of nine seats on the Supreme Court would be reserved for clerics.

The other issue was the role of clerics in family law. Mr. Chalabi said Iraqi leaders were weighing two phrases. The first phrase, considered more secular, says that "Iraqis of all faiths, confessions and otherwise, are free to conduct family issues according to their beliefs." Under that phrase, the National Assembly would write legislation to resolve conflicts that arise when a husband and wife have different beliefs.

A second phrase says simply that "Iraqis will not be compelled to act in family affairs in ways contrary to their religious faiths or beliefs."

Mr. Chalabi said that whatever language was ultimately accepted, Iraqis, at least theoretically, would be free to opt for a resolution of family disputes in civil courts, under a relatively liberal civil law now on the books.

Inquiry in Death of Envoy's Cousin

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 21 (AP) - The United States military said Sunday that it had ordered a criminal investigation into the death in June of a 21-year-old cousin of Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations. The ambassador has accused the military of shooting his unarmed cousin during a raid by American marines in western Iraq against what was suspected of being a staging area for insurgents.

After a preliminary investigation, the case involving the death of the cousin, Muhammad al-Sumaidaie, has been referred to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service+ for further investigation of possible felony criminal charges, the military said in a statement.

According to the ambassador, Samir Sumaidaie, his cousin was shot in the neck after he cooperated in the marines' search for weapons in the house and led them to an unloaded rifle in a bedroom.

Iraq is not Vietnam, not by any stretch

August 22, 2005

The American left may like to reprise Vietnam, but they're badly wrong, writes Michael Gawenda.

THE New York Times columnist Frank Rich is the voice of America's late middle-aged baby boomers for whom opposition to the Vietnam War became the prism through which they would subsequently judge US foreign policy.

Rich, who was once the most feared theatre critic in America when he was initially on the Times, able to close a Broadway show with a lukewarm review, is now back at the paper writing a weekly column that has become a rallying call for opponents of the war in Iraq and the subject of vitriol from the war's supporters.

More than any other liberal columnist - Maureen Dowd, for instance, or Paul Krugman - Rich, who both opponents and supporters agree is a terrific writer with a withering wit and a talent for wounding sarcasm, challenges and ridicules the triumphalism of the neo-conservative columnists and their cable television fellow travellers who have been a remarkably successful cheer squad for the Bush Administration.

Last week, Rich declared the war in Iraq lost and over, based on a comparison of support for George Bush's handling of the Iraq war - 44 per cent - and Lyndon Johnson's in 1968 - 32 per cent. He even recalled Johnson tearfully declaring on television that he would not be a candidate for the presidential election that year.

"No president can stay the course when his own citizens (let alone his own allies) won't stay with him," he wrote.

Rich then goes on to catalogue all the standard anti-war stuff - the lies about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, the lies about the connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq, the neo-con determination to invade Iraq long before September 11, the botched occupation.

But it is Rich's use of the debacle of Vietnam to declare the Iraq war lost that resonates most powerfully with both the middle-aged opponents of the war and its supporters.

Vietnam was a defining war, not just for those who opposed it and declared victory when the last US chopper lifted off the roof of the US embassy just ahead of the arrival in Saigon of the victorious North Vietnamese army.

For the budding neo-conservatives, some of whom had initially been opposed to the intervention in Vietnam, and who would become a major intellectual influence during the Reagan presidency and later, of course, in the Bush Administration, Vietnam and, in particular, the nature of the anti-war movement, was their great awakening.

The Vietnam War was lost because America had lost confidence in itself, because the '60s cultural revolution, of which the anti-war movement was a part, had undermined American institutions and shared values.

For them, the lesson of Vietnam was not that the war was a mistake based on a fatal misreading and misunderstanding of Vietnamese nationalism and the historic antipathy between Vietnam and China that meant the war was always going to become a bloody aimless quagmire. Instead, never again meant that never again should the US fight a war that it was not prepared to see through to victory and that America's security depended on a confident and assertive, militarily unassailable, America.

All this explains why the claim that Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam resonates so powerfully with the ageing baby boomer left who despise Bush and his neo-conservative supporters, many of whom were once their comrades.

And to be confronted with the accusation that far from fulfilling their pledge of never again, the mistakes of Vietnam, at their urging, are being repeated in Iraq, enrages the intellectual architects of the Bush doctrine of a confident and engaged and dominant America spreading democracy and freedom, if necessary, by armed force.

In the wake of the reality as opposed to the fantasy of regime change in Iraq, the ascendancy of the neo-conservatives and their faith in American power and American exceptionalism that in part, came from their reaction to Vietnam, is over.

But Iraq is not Vietnam and the world of 2005 is nothing like the world of 1968. There are no lessons from Vietnam that can be applied to Iraq.

And the Cold War, which was the context and the pretext for the American intervention in Vietnam shares no similarities with the war on terror or the struggle against extremism or whatever you want to call it. None at all. It's time all those old baby boomers for whom the Vietnam War and those halcyon days of protest and love, was the most intense time of their lives, got on with planning their retirements.

Cindy Sheehan, the grieving mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq last year, camped outside the Bush ranch in Texas demanding to see Bush so she can demand that he withdraw all American troops from Iraq, has become a lightning rod for the US anti-war movement.

She has the sympathy, if not the support, of most Americans, but there is no mass anti-war movement in America. Most people do not support Cindy Sheehan's demand for an immediate American withdrawal from Iraq.

Even most opponents of the war, even Frank Rich, do not think that the US should simply get out of Iraq and leave Iraqis to deal with a murderous Baathist insurgency and imported fascist terrorists. This is not Vietnam.

Michael Moore is a discredited and marginalised figure, having had his 15 minutes of fame when Bush haters, during the presidential election campaign, hailed Fahrenheit 9/11 as a master work when they must have known it was little more than crude - if powerful - propaganda.

Unlike Vietnam, there are no Tom Haydens to lead campus revolts against the Iraq war and the "corrupt system" that produced it. There haven't been - and there won't be - collections in America or Australia for the Baathists and terrorists, as there were for the Vietcong during the Vietnam War. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is not Ho Chi Minh. Mick Jagger has written and recorded an anti-war song called Sweet Neo Con. Having read the lyrics, it seems unlikely to become the anti-war movement's anthem.

It is so bad that it might even encourage some of the old veterans of the anti-Vietnam War movement after they hear it, to stop banging on about the lessons of Vietnam. If that happens, Mick Jagger will deserve our thanks.

Michael Gawenda is United States correspondent.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/iraq-is-not-vietnam-not-by-any-stretch/2005/08/21/1124562744766.html?oneclick=true

IRAQ WRAPUP 10-Iraq gets constitution draft, Sunni ire delays

22 Aug 2005 20:59:09 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Michael Georgy and Andrew Hammond

BAGHDAD, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Iraq's majority Shi'ites and Kurdish allies pushed a draft constitution into parliament on Monday, minutes before a midnight deadline, but minority Sunnis, warning of civil war, held up a final vote amid confusion.

With the Shi'ite Islamist-led coalition talking of a "final" document being completed, the speaker of the National Assembly announced to applause the deadline had been met and a draft constitution presented. But without calling a vote he dismissed the chamber, saying there would be three more days of talks.

It remained unclear how far continuing Sunni Arab objections to regional autonomy within a federal state could be overcome and Shi'ite leaders said they were ready to press on regardless.

"If it passes, there will be an uprising in the streets," Sunni negotiator Saleh al-Mutlak said, adding that further blockage on a deal would in his view trigger elections to a new interim assembly.

But Shi'ite and Kurdish delegates were giving little ground and U.S. diplomats are pressing hard to keep to the timetable.

"We have fully completed the constitution," Shi'ite Vice President Adel Abdel Mehdi told Reuters. "But we may need to modify some points to satisfy the others."

Speaker Hajim al-Hassani said four points, including the key issues of the very concept of a "federal" state and control of oil revenues, were still in dispute -- much the same as when an original deadline was put back by a week last Monday.

Mutlak said he reckoned there were many more objections.

But the Shi'ite head of the constitutional drafting committee, Humam Hamoudi, said that if there were still no compromises in three days: "The constitution will keep moving."

Kurdish lawmaker Ahmed Pinjwani conceded, however, that if the Sunnis could not be won over, "It will move with a limp."

U.S. PRESSURE

U.S. President George W. Bush, himself campaigning to quell growing disquiet at home over the costly military occupation of Iraq, has pressed hard for the U.S.-sponsored timetable to be respected and says it will help sap the Sunni Arab insurgency.

The cost may be a collapse of a fragile attempt at consensus politics that had brought Sunni leaders, who shunned the January vote that produced the parliament, into the drafting process.

The draft prepared by Shi'ites and Kurds, assisted by U.S. diplomats but without Sunni involvement, gave ground to some of the once dominant minority's fears of Shi'ites and Kurds hiving off strong federal regions in the oil-rich north and south.

But Sunni Arabs, outraged at what they called a "breach of consensus", stood by a demand "federalism" be left out.

The text seen by Reuters said Iraq was a "federal" republic. The draft also made Islam "a main source" of law in what seemed a compromise between Islamist Shi'ites and secular Kurds.

"We will campaign ... to tell both Sunnis and Shi'ites to reject the constitution, which has elements that will lead to the break-up of Iraq and civil war," Soha Allawi, a Sunni Arab member of the drafting committee, told Reuters.

SHI'ITE DETERMINATION

Parliament had faced dissolution if no draft were adopted by midnight (2000 GMT). Word earlier in the evening that the Shi'te majority was ready to push a deal through provoked scenes of rejoicing in the holy city of Najaf and other Shi'ite towns.

"We cannot wait and give them all the time they need to be convinced ... If our Sunni Arab brothers don't want to vote for federalism then they can reject it," said Jalal-el-Din al-Sagheer, a Shi'ite cleric on the constitutional committee.

Interim rules say the charter is rejected if two thirds of voters in three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote against it.

Kurdish delegate Abdel Khalek Zangana said the provision on federalism satisfied Kurdish demands for guarantees they would retain the broad autonomy they already have in the north.

One Sunni leader said the text had dropped wording that forbade secession from Iraq; Kurdish leaders say they do not want to break away entirely but want to keep the option open.

U.S. diplomats, led by ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, architect of the new Afghan constitution, have been working hard to save the deadline. Secular Kurdish delegates had complained that he had made concessions to the Shi'ite Islamists in allowing for a greater role for Islam in Iraqi law.

The draft document, seen in part by Reuters, described Iraq as a "republican, parliamentarian, democratic and federal" state. It also said, in general terms, that natural resources would be controlled jointly by central and local government.

In former rebel strongholds like Falluja and across the Sunni heartlands of the north and west, which largely shunned the January polls that produced the Shi'ite and Kurd-dominated interim legislature, voters have been registering in large numbers.

Some Shi'ites, notably supporters of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, also reject federalism.

With discontent spreading at the failure of the present government to curb violence or improve living standards, rival parties see a chance to embarrass it at the polls.

If the referendum ratifies the constitution, voting in December will be for a full-term parliament with full powers. (Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Mussab Al-Khairalla, Hiba Moussa and Luke Baker)

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Oil Prices Rise After Iraq Outages

Monday August 22, 2005 - 5:35 pm ET

By George Jahn, Associated Press Writer

Oil Prices Rise As Market Weighs Iraqi Outages, Easing of Troubles in Ecuador

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Oil prices rose Monday as traders weighed the effects of sabotage that disrupted Iraq's southern pipeline exports against partially resumed crude production in Ecuador.

Analysts cautioned against putting too much emphasis on the Iraqi outages, saying it was too early to say how long the shortfalls in output would last. An official of Iraq's South Oil Co. said exports had resumed on a limited basis, while other officials said waiting tankers were being serviced by pumps on auxillary power at a rate much reduced from normal.

Light sweet crude for September delivery rose 10 cents to settle at $65.45 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The September contract expired Monday.

The front-month crude futures contract reached an all-time high of $67.10 on Aug. 12. While prices are 42 percent above year ago levels, they are still below the inflation-adjusted high above $90 a barrel, set in 1980.

Gasoline on the Nymex fell 4.23 cents to $1.8616 a gallon. Heating oil futures dropped by 1.12 cent to $1.8116 a gallon.

Natural gas futures climbed 45.3 cents to $9.564 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, October Brent crude rose 14 cents to settle at $64.50 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange.

Iraqi and foreign oil officials said Iraq's oil exports were shut down Monday by a power cut that darkened parts of central and southern Iraq, including the country's only functioning oil export terminals.

Exports through the country's other main route, the northern export pipeline to Turkey, have long been halted by incessant sabotage.

Iraqi officials said sabotage was also responsible for Monday's blackout, which prevented oil from being pumped into tankers waiting at berths.

Iraqi pipelines are a frequent target for insurgents, as a large quantity of the oil heads for Western nations and disrupting the flow of crude is seen as a way to destabilize the U.S.-supported government.

But chief analyst Ehsan Ul-Haq of PVM Oil Associates in Vienna said the Iraqi supply disruption was not yet a major market factor because "it's still not quite clear whether (Iraqi) exports will be affected for a long time."

Some stability came from South America, where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said his country will loan oil to Ecuador until its domestic production stabilizes, easing concerns that the Andean nation's export commitments to the United States might not be met.

"Chavez's move was quite good news for the market," said chief commodities strategist Tetsu Emori at Mitsui Bussan Futures in Tokyo, Japan. "It came as something of a surprise to most because Chavez has always been bullish. But it's a welcome move."

Violent protests erupted in Ecuador last Tuesday, bringing oil production to a standstill. Production partially resumed Saturday when demonstrators and the government declared a truce.

Ecuador's state-run oil company Petroecuador on Saturday restored 33,167 barrels of crude output in the northeast Amazon, but that was still about 168,000 barrels short of normal daily capacity.

Such an amount does not hurt actual supply, but the thin layer of spare capacity has markets on edge for any unexpected outage that could derail deliveries in a time of high demand.

Ecuador said production would not return to normal until October at the earliest.

Associated Press

Jordan Arrests Suspect in Rocket Attack

rdan Arrests Suspect From Syria in Rocket Attack That Missed U.S. Wars

By JAMAL HALABY Associated Press Writer

AMMAN, Jordan Aug 22, 2005 — A Syrian linked to an Iraqi-based terrorist group has been arrested as the prime suspect in the rocket attack that barely missed U.S. warships docked in the port of Aqaba, the Jordanian government said Monday.

The government statement, read on state television, said the suspect, Mohammed Hassan Abdullah al-Sihly, plotted and carried out the attack along with two of his sons and an Iraqi.

The statement said the plotters were part of an Iraq-based terrorist group, which was not named.

Al-Sihly, who lives in Amman, had been surveying sites for the Katyusha rocket attack in Aqaba since Aug. 6, the statement said. He was joined by his two sons Abdullah and Abdul-Rahman and Mohammed Hamid Hussein, the Iraqi, in "carrying out the heinous crime."

Hussein, also known as Abu Mukhtar, was the leader of the Iraq-based group, the announcement said.

In the Friday attack, assailants fired three rockets from a window at a warehouse in a poor industrial area of Aqaba, a usually quiet Red Sea resort frequented by Western and Israeli tourists. The warehouse was rented to four Egyptians and Iraqis early last week, police said.

One rocket flew across the bow of a U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship and crashed into a warehouse, killing a Jordanian soldier. Two other missiles flew in another direction, toward Israel; one landed near a Jordanian hospital, the other on the outskirts of an Israeli airport.

The attack was the most serious threat against the U.S. Navy since the 2000 al-Qaida bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. It was also the first attack targeting U.S. personnel in Jordan since the October 2002 killing of Laurence Foley, an aid worker, outside his Amman home blamed on Iraq's al-Qaida point man, the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

An al-Qaida group called the Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed responsibility for Friday's attack.

The security official said four weapons the attackers left behind at the warehouse were similar to Katyusha rockets used by insurgents against U.S. troops in Iraq.

Authorities believe the unfired rockets were intended for other Aqaba targets. At least one rocket launcher and other unspecified weapons also were found in the warehouse, whose owner has been detained, the security official said.

In recent months, Jordan has received several warnings that Aqaba was a primary al-Qaida target, the official said.

Key sites in the resort city include a beach-front compound of palaces one a vacation house for Jordan's ruler, King Abdullah II and a chain of international hotels frequented by American troops and others on leave from Iraq.

Jordan, a key U.S. ally that signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, has been the target of several failed al-Qaida plots. Thirteen men including al-Zarqawi and three other fugitives are on trial in a military court for an alleged al-Qaida-linked plot to attack Jordan with chemicals. The plot was foiled in April 2004.

The United States is being kept abreast of developments in the investigation, another security official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

He stressed that Jordanian investigators have the "leading role" in the probe a clear suggestion that Americans were also taking part. He refused further comment. The U.S. Embassy in Amman also declined comment.

Hours after the rocket attack, the embassy warned American government personnel against traveling to Aqaba and told other U.S. citizens to "exercise caution."

Jordan's Interior Minister Awni Yirfas said the warning was unnecessary and that "the security situation is under control."

The Associated Press

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