[casi] News, 4-10/6/03 (1)

[Peter Brooke <pbrooke@DELETETHISukonline.co.uk>]

News, 4-10/6/03 (1)

ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEMS

*  U.S. to issue pink slips to 500,000 Iraqi workers
*  Bush's can-do man puts the business into Baghdad
*  Grain Exports To Iraq May Suffer In Wake Of New Appointment
*  New Report Exposes Contractor Bechtel as Threat to Iraqi Environment,
Human Rights and Basic Services
*  U.N.: Health Problems Widespread in Iraq
*  Cash Crisis Forces U.S. to Print Saddam Banknotes

GIANT STEP FORWARD TOWARDS THE END OF HISTORY

*  Iraq now takes Visa

CULTURE CORNER

*  Most Iraqi Treasures Recovered
*  Tank is canvas for Iraqi kids

FORCES OF CIVIL SOCIETY

*  A tribal rivalry may give clues to Iraq's future

PROBLEMS WITH SECURITY

*  U.S. administrator says new military recruitment to begin in late June
*  U.S. Soldier Killed in Iraqi Attack
*  U.S. troops attacked again in central Iraq
*  U.S. Soldiers Face Growing Resistance


ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEMS

RFE/RL IRAQ REPORT Vol. 6, No. 25, 6 June 2003

*  U.S. TO ISSUE PINK SLIPS TO 500,000 IRAQI WORKERS

The CPA intends to lay off some 500,000 Iraqi military and civilian
personnel in the coming days, the "Los Angeles Times" website
(http://www.latimes.com) reported on 3 June. Information Ministry,
armed-forces personnel, and other government employees will receive
"termination payments" of around $20 -- the equivalent of an average monthly
salary. According to the daily, around 30 percent of Iraqi workers were
employed by the government under deposed President Saddam Hussein. The move,
coupled with an estimated 20 percent unemployment, could further destabilize
the country. U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer told reporters on 2 June that
the CPA is looking into ways of providing at least temporary employment to
some Iraqis (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 3 June 2003), including a $70 million
community-development program that should resume municipal services such as
trash collection and rebuild schools damaged by the conflict. The CPA
estimates that about 100,000 of Iraq's 400,000 Hussein-era military
personnel will be rehired as part of the New Iraqi Corps (see "RFE/RL
Newsline," 3 June 2003).


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,970595,00.html

*  BUSH'S CAN-DO MAN PUTS THE BUSINESS INTO BAGHDAD
by Naomi Klein
The Guardian, 5th June

The streets of Baghdad are a swamp of uncollected garbage and crime.
Battered local businesses are going bankrupt, unable to compete with cheap
imports. Unemployment is soaring and thousands of laid-off state workers are
protesting in the streets. In other words, Iraq looks like every other
country that has undergone rapid-fire "structural adjustments" prescribed by
Washington, from Russia's infamous "shock therapy" in the early 90s to
Argentina's disastrous "surgery without anasthetic". Except that Iraq's
so-called reconstruction makes those wrenching reforms look like spa
treatments.

Paul Bremer, the US-appointed governor of Iraq, has already proved something
of a flop in the democracy department in his three weeks there, nixing plans
for Iraqis to select their own interim government in favour of his own
handpicked team of advisers. But Bremer has proved to have something of a
gift when it comes to rolling out the red carpet for US multinationals.
Expect broad smiles when George Bush meets Bremer in Qatar today.

For two weeks, Bremer has been hacking away at Iraq's public sector like
former Sunbeam executive "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap in a flak jacket. On May 12,
Bremer banned up to 30,000 senior Ba'ath party officials from jobs in
government. Less than a week later, he dissolved the army and the
information ministry, putting 400,000 Iraqis out of work without pensions or
re-employment programmes.

Of course, if Saddam Hussein's henchmen and propagandists held on to power
in Iraq it would be a human rights disaster. "De-Ba'athification", as the
purging of party officials has come to be called, may be the only way to
prevent a comeback by Saddam's crew - and hold on to the one true benefit
that could come from George Bush's illegal war.

But Bremer has gone far beyond purging powerful Ba'ath loyalists and moved
into a full scale assault on the state itself. It seems doctors who joined
the party as children and have no love for Saddam face dismissal, while
low-level civil servants with no ties to the party have been fired en masse.
Nuha Najeeb, who ran a Baghdad printing house, told Reuters: "I ... had
nothing to do with Saddam's media, so why am I sacked?"

As the Bush administration becomes increasingly open about its plans to
privatise Iraq's state industries and parts of government, Bremer's
de-Ba'athification takes on new meaning. Is he working only get rid of
Ba'ath party members, or is he also working to shrink the public sector as a
whole so that hospitals, schools and even the army are primed for
privatisation by US firms? Just as reconstruction is the guise for
privatisation, de-Ba'athification looks a lot like disguised downsizing.

Similar questions arise from Bremer's chainsaw job on Iraqi companies,
already pummelled by 12 years of sanctions and a month and a half of
looting. Bremer did not even wait to get lights back on in Baghdad, for the
dinar to stabilise or for the spare parts to arrive for Iraq's hobbled
factories before he declared, on May 26, that Iraq was "open for business".

Duty-free imported television sets and packaged food flooded across the
border, pushing many Iraqi businesses into bankruptcy, unable to compete.
This is how Iraq joined the global "free market" economy: in the dark.

Paul Bremer is, according to Bush, "a can-do type of person". Indeed he is.
In less than a month he has readied large swathes of state activity for
corporate takeover, primed the Iraqi market for foreign importers to make a
killing by doing away with much of the local competition, and made sure
there won't be any unpleasant Iraqi government interference - in fact, he
has made sure there will be no Iraqi government at all during this crucial
period when so many key decisions will be made. Bremer is Iraq's one-man
International Monetary Fund.

Like so many of the men who populate the Bush foreign policy landscape,
Bremer sees war as a business opportunity. On October 11 2001, just one
month after the terror attacks in New York and Washington, Bremer, once
Ronald Reagan's ambassador at large for counterterrorism, launched a company
designed to capitalise on the new atmosphere of fear in US corporate
boardrooms. Crisis Consulting Practice, a division of the insurance giant
Marsh and McLennan, specialises in helping multinationals to come up with
"integrated and comprehensive crisis solutions" for everything from terror
attacks to accounting fraud. And, thanks to a strategic alliance with
Versar, a specialist in biological and chemical threats, clients of the two
companies are treated to "total counter-terrorism services".

In order to sell this kind of high-priced protection to US firms, Bremer had
to make the sort of frank links between terrorism and the failing global
economy that activists are consistently called lunatics for articulating. In
a November 2001 policy paper, titled New Risks in International Business, he
explains that free trade policies "require laying off workers. And opening
markets to foreign trade puts enormous pressure on traditional retailers and
trade monopolies". This leads to "growing income gaps and social tensions",
which in turn can lead to a range of attacks on US firms, from terrorism to
government attempts to reverse privatisation and trade incentives.

He could be describing the backlash his own policies are provoking in Iraq.
But then guys like Bremer always know how to play both sides. Like a hacker
who cripples corporate websites then sells himself as a network security
specialist, in a few months Bremer may well be selling terrorism insurance
to the very companies he welcomed into Iraq.

And why not? As Bremer told his clients back at Marsh, globalisation may
have immediate negative consequences for many but it also leads to "the
creation of unprecedented wealth".

It has for Bremer and his cronies. On May 12, the day he arrived in Iraq,
his former boss, Marsh chairman Jeffrey W Greenberg, announced that 2002
"was a great year for Marsh - operating income was up 31%, Marsh's expertise
analysing risk and helping clients develop risk management programmes has
been in great demand. Our prospects have never been better".

Many point out that Paul Bremer is no expert on Iraqi politics. But that was
never the point. He seems to be an expert at profiting from the war on
terror, and at helping US multinationals make money in far off places where
they are both unpopular and unwelcome. In other words, he is perfect for the
job.


http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=35437

*  GRAIN EXPORTS TO IRAQ MAY SUFFER IN WAKE OF NEW APPOINTMENT
by Ashok B Sharma
Financial Express, 2nd June (?)

New Delhi, June 1: Indian exporters of food items are not very optimistic
about the future of exports to Iraq. The appointment of the former Cargill
senior executive Dan Amstutz, in charge of agricultural reconstruction in
Iraq is being viewed as a strategy to allows imports only from US and its
allies.

Mr Amstutz also had earlier served the Reagan Administration as a trade
negotiator in the Uruguay round of the world trade talks. Oxfam has already
reacted to Mr Amstutz's appointment and has expressed concern over the
promotion of US interests in Iraq. Oxfam's policy director, Kevin Watkins
has said "putting Dan Amstutz in charge of agricultural reconstruction in
Iraq is like putting Saddam Hussein in the chair of a human rights
commission. This guy is uniquely well-placed to advance the commercial
interests of American grain companies and bust open the Iraqi market - but
singularly ill-equipped to lead a reconstruction effort in a developing
country."

Though the UN-Food-For-Oil Programme which expires on June 1 has been
extended for another six months, the Indian exporters are still vary about
the situation. Speaking to FE, Mr Raj Kumar Jain of Priyanka Overseas said:
"chances of exporting food items to Iraq seems bleak at least for the next
three months. The Americans have found a warehouse in Iraq where the earlier
Saddam administration has stored over one million tonnes of wheat. Over and
above, there has been a bumper wheat crop in Iraq, this year. In this
situation, it may not be possible to export wheat to Iraq."

Mr Jain said that that so far 15 contract bids have been floated for imports
of various commodities needed, out of which three contract bids are for
import of wheat and two for import of tea. He said that it is most likely
that the wheat contracts may be bagged by either US or Australian firms.

He regretted that Indian exports have become costlier in a situation of the
Indian currency strengthening against the US dollar.

Earlier when one US dollar was equal to Rs 49, the exports were lucrative,
but today the one US dollar is equal to Rs 46.80 and this situation has made
exports costlier. In addition, the government has hiked the prices of grains
to be sold to exporters from its warehouses by about Rs 600 per tonne on an
average.


NO URL

*  NEW REPORT EXPOSES CONTRACTOR BECHTEL AS THREAT TO IRAQI ENVIRONMENT,
HUMAN RIGHTS AND BASIC SERVICES
Press Statement, Public Citizen  202-588-7742

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - June 5 - Bechtel Group Inc., one of the lead contractors
in the reconstruction of Iraq, has a 100-year history of capitalizing on
environmentally unsustainable technologies and reaping immense profits at
the expense of societies and the environment, said a report released today
by Public Citizen, Global Exchange and CorpWatch. Its release was timed to
coincide with a day of direct actions around the country to protest
Bechtel's presence in Iraq, the report concludes that the Bush
administration must be stopped from doling out contracts to undeserving
firms with which it has close ties, including Bechtel and Halliburton.

The report, Bechtel: Profiting from Destruction, provides case studies from
Bechtel's history of operations in the water, nuclear, energy and public
works sectors. It documents a track record by Bechtel of environmental
destruction, disregard for human rights and financial mismanagement of
projects that has affected communities all over the world and does not bode
well for the people of Iraq.

"If environmental and consumer protection violations had been taken into
account, Bechtel would not have been awarded such an important contract in
Iraq," said Sara Grusky, senior organizer with Public Citizen. "The American
people are funding this contract through their tax dollars but are being
denied the right to see what their money is supporting." On April 17,
Bechtel was awarded $34.6 million of an 18-month Iraq reconstruction
contract worth up to $680 million, including the rehabilitation,
reconstruction and expansion covering all key elements of Iraq's
infrastructure, including electrical grids, water and wastewater systems.
The contract was part of a limited bidding process that forbade public
review and was kept secret even from Congress.

"This contract is about profit-making, not humanitarian efforts," said Maria
Elena Martinez, executive director of CorpWatch. "The Iraqi people are in
desperate straits thanks to the U.S. government, and now a U.S. company
stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars. It exemplifies the typical
revolving door between big business and government - in this case, Bechtel's
board members and our high-ranking government officials." A historical look
at Bechtel's wrongdoings includes: ‹ In Papua New Guinea, Bechtel partnered
in constructing the world's largest gold mine in 1970. The mine daily dumps
hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic waste from the mining operations
directly into local rivers. In 2000, a waste dump accident resulted in four
deaths.

‹ Environmental and human rights groups have charged that Bechtel, in a
partnership with Shell called InterGen, circumvented U.S. environmental laws
by building a power plant on the Mexican border for the sole purpose of
exporting energy to the United States. The La Rosita InterGen plant located
in Mexicali, Baja Calif., and partly owned by Bechtel, was the subject of a
May 6, 2003, court ruling that found that the U.S. Department of Energy and
Bureau of Land Management had acted illegally in granting permits to
InterGen to build this power plant.

‹ In Cochabamba, Bolivia, in 1999, Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of
Bechtel, provoked protests that shut down the city when it privatized the
city's water system, then implemented massive price hikes that left many
people unable to afford water. The United Nations has formally declared
water to be a human right - Bechtel violated this international resolution
when it deprived people of their right to water. The outcry forced the
Bolivian government to cancel Bechtel's contract; Bechtel is now suing the
country in a World Bank court for $25 million in lost profits.

‹ At nuclear power plants in Palisades, Mich.; Humboldt Bay, Calif.; Three
Mile Island, Penn.; San Onofre, Calif., and Davis-Besse, Ohio, Bechtel was
involved in some of the U.S. commercial nuclear industry's more notable
mishaps.

‹ In Nevada, Bechtel was awarded the management contract for a proposed
nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, a site considered sacred by the
Western Shoshone people and part of a decades-long land dispute between the
United States government and the Native Americans. On these same lands,
Bechtel manages a Nevada test site and counterterrorism facility where
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons construction and testing are
carried out. The operation of the facility and its environmental and health
effects have prompted ongoing protests from Native Americans, environmental
and disarmament advocates.

‹ In Boston, Bechtel's mismanagement and cost overruns have been
unprecedented. Bechtel designed and manages the Boston Central Artery tunnel
project, also known as "the Big Dig." This federally funded project is the
most costly civil engineering undertaking in U.S. history; estimated at $2.5
billion in 1985, it reached $14.6 billion in 2003.

‹ In San Francisco in 2002, the Board of Supervisors phased out a contract
with Bechtel for the management of the upgrade of the city's water systems
before its completion date. Bechtel was charged with doing unnecessary and
overpriced work and charging the city for tens of thousands of dollars'
worth of personal expenses.

The report also documents Bechtel's history in Iraq, where the company was
pushing for an oil pipeline deal in the 1980s at the same time that Saddam
Hussein was committing his worst atrocities against the Iraqi people.

Bechtel was named by Hussein's government as one of the U.S. companies that
provided it with materials that could be used to make weaponry.

"Bechtel has demonstrated brazen moral corruption by first contributing to
the development of Iraq's weapons, then pushing for a war against Iraq, and
finally profiting from the tragedy and destruction wrought by that war,"
said Andrea Buffa, peace campaign coordinator at Global Exchange. "It is a
textbook example of what war profiteering looks like. This report answers
the question ­ 'What's wrong with Bechtel?' " The report's recommendations
include: ‹ Implementing a democratic reconstruction in Iraq, led by the
Iraqi people with the help of international institutions like the United
Nations.

‹ Opening up and making transparent the bidding process for U.S. government
contracts in Iraq and elsewhere.

‹ Companies bidding for U.S. government contracts should have satisfactory
records of integrity and business ethics.


http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-me/2003/jun/08/060802305.html

*  U.N.: HEALTH PROBLEMS WIDESPREAD IN IRAQ
by Borzou Daragahi
Las Vegas Sun (from AP), 8th June

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Nearly two months after the U.S.-led war to topple
Saddam Hussein's government, relief agencies are still struggling to control
widespread health problems aggravated by the conflict, U.N. officials said
Sunday.

Geoffrey Keele, Baghdad spokesman for UNICEF, the U.N. children's fund, said
66 cases of cholera have been confirmed in the southern Iraqi city of Basra,
with three of them being fatal. He blamed the country's damaged
infrastructure.

The incidence of diarrhea has increased 250 percent among Iraqi children,
worsened by war related damage to Iraq's health and sanitation facilities,
Keele said.

A survey last month showed 72 percent of children suffered from diarrhea in
the previous month, he said. That is 2 1/2 times the normal rate.

The incidence of diarrhea often is used as a barometer of public health.

Meanwhile, U.N. Special Envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello held discussions with
prominent Iraqi political figures, including former Foreign Minister Adnan
Pachachi.

Vieira de Mello, on leave from his job as the U.N. High Commissioner for
Human Rights, told reporters outside Pachachi's home that his job was to
"listen to, interpret and assist" Iraqis.

American forces in Iraq have denied the United Nations a leading role in
rebuilding the country's government and infrastructure. But international
agencies have been working to improve Iraqis' health, nutrition and housing
woes.

Authorities have registered nearly 2,500 homeless families, with many in
Baghdad, said Robert Painter, a U.N. official. The homeless include orphans,
widows, pensioners, the mentally ill and the physically disabled.

"We don't have a handle on this situation," he said.

Coalition forces asked Painter to visit the Bani Sa'ad prison, taken over in
the weeks since the war by a tribe of 1,500 Arabs evicted from their farms
near Khaneqin by Iraqi Kurds. The Americans want to use the prison.

"Clearly these people have occupied the prison illegally," Painter said.
"But they are internally displaced people, and they need some kind of
shelter."

U.N. officials said they have not been able to define the exact scope of
Iraq's humanitarian afflictions because Iraq's health-care system has
largely collapsed.

But Keele also said many of Iraq's problems predate the war, including the
pumping of hundreds of thousands of tons of raw sewage a year into Iraq's
freshwater supply.

Although Keele said the diarrhea problems may have peaked for now, July and
August are the high season for dangerous gastrointestinal illnesses such as
cholera and typhoid.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030609/ts_nm/iraq_curren
cy_dc&cid=564&ncid=1478

*  CASH CRISIS FORCES U.S. TO PRINT SADDAM BANKNOTES
by Andrew Marshall
Tahoo, 9th June

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - They have torn down his statues and peppered his
portraits with bullet holes, but Iraq's interim U.S. rulers have been forced
to print millions of new banknotes bearing the face of Saddam Hussein.

Officials sitting at makeshift desks in the plundered and fire-ravaged
central bank building say printing presses began cranking out vast
quantities of Saddam dinars last week to ease a cash crisis that has enraged
Iraqis.

The problem lies with the purple-and-yellow 10,000-dinar notes, worth about
$10 dollars, that Saddam's government introduced in the last years of its
rule.

Nobody wants to hold them. They are widely believed to be easy to
counterfeit and persistent rumors say they will be declared worthless
because large amounts were stolen during the anarchy that followed Saddam's
overthrow on April 9.

Merchants are redeeming the notes at only around 70 percent of their face
value, infuriating Iraqis who have received their wages in 10,000-dinar
bills. Everybody wants their money in 250- dinar notes, even though large
transactions require sackloads of them to be hauled around.

To meet the demand for the smaller notes, the central bank is printing
millions, each bearing the picture of a youthful Saddam with neatly combed
hair and a smart jacket and tie.

"It was not possible to change the banknotes for the time being," Faleh
Salman, the acting central bank governor, told Reuters in his chaotic office
in an annex of the central bank compound. "There is no national authority in
Iraq at the moment to change the design of the banknotes."

Outside, hundreds of Iraqis thronged the barbed-wire barricades at the
entrances to the compound waving fistfuls of 10,000-dinar bills. U.S. troops
yelled at them to disperse.

"I came to change these notes because nobody will take them," said Zainab
Mohammed, an elderly woman veiled in black. "But nobody will let us in. What
am I supposed to do?"

Flanked by U.S. soldiers, the 59-year-old Salman left his office to try to
calm the crowd. Sweating in the fierce sun and mopping his brow, he told
them truckloads of 250-dinar bills were being sent to banks across Iraq in
the next few days.

Salman insists that the 10,000-dinar notes are legal tender and should be
redeemed at full face value by banks and merchants. He blames speculators
for fueling the hysteria.

"People are trying to make a profit by saying the notes will become
worthless, then buying them for less than face value," he said. Asked how
many 250-dinar notes were being printed, he replied: "That's my secret."

U.S. and British officials concede it is embarrassing to have to print
Saddam banknotes, but say it is better to lose face -- by temporarily
keeping his face on the currency -- than fan the anger of Iraqis about the
dinars in their pockets.

They say new banknotes will be designed once an interim Iraqi administration
is in place. The exchange rate has gyrated on speculation about the new
currency and a postwar influx of dollars.

Some Iraqis have been hoarding the so-called "Swiss dinar," Iraq's pre-1991
currency that does not carry Saddam's face, believing it will be revived.
The old and tattered notes are still in use in the north of the country,
where Kurds ran an autonomous enclave after the 1991 Gulf War.

The "Swiss dinars," which got their name because they were printed in Europe
and are considered harder to counterfeit, are worth far more than the Saddam
dinars.

They reached a high of 3.8 to the dollar this month, while it takes more
than 1,000 Saddam dinars to buy a dollar.


GIANT STEP FORWARD TOWARDS THE END OF HISTORY

RFE/RL IRAQ REPORT Vol. 6, No. 25, 6 June 2003

*  IRAQ NOW TAKES VISA

Visa International transacted the first international credit card payments
in Iraq in Baghdad on 1 June, "Gulf News" reported on 2 June. An Iraqi
expatriate who paid for a two-night stay in Baghdad's Ard Sumar Hotel made
the first transaction. "We have started the acceptance of international Visa
cards in a certain number of outlets, including hotels and restaurants,"
Visa's Middle East General Manager Peter Scriven told the daily. "As foreign
visitors enter the country to help with the reconstruction of postwar Iraq,
we hope to provide a modern payment method that will facilitate the work of
international and humanitarian organizations as well as the development of
new business," he said. (Kathleen Ridolfo)


CULTURE CORNER

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29518
2003Jun7.html?nav=hptop_ts

*  MOST IRAQI TREASURES RECOVERED
by William Booth
Washington Post, 8th June

BAGHDAD, June 7 -- Reports describing the looting of Iraq's archaeological
treasures from the national museum were exaggerated, and most of the
precious inscribed tablets, gold jewelry and artwork dating from the birth
of civilization have been recovered, a team of U.S. investigators said
today.

The biggest prize so far was the discovery this week of the world-famous
treasures of Nimrud, which had been hidden for the last decade in a secret
vault beneath the ransacked Central Bank in Baghdad. The Tigris River had
flooded the bank's cellar, surrounding the vault with foul water.

The objects had not been on public display for years -- some apparently had
been squirreled away during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and other pieces
may have been placed in safekeeping after the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Initial estimates after the war ended in April suggested that as many as
170,000 pieces, including the Nimrud treasures, were lost or stolen during
the sacking of the museum, according to U.S. officials. They now say 3,000
pieces remain unaccounted for and may have disappeared into the shadowy
world of black market antiquities trading.

"Three thousand is a hopeful guess, but it's not beyond the realm of
reason," said John Russell of the Massachusetts College of Art, an Iraq
expert who spent four days at the museum in Baghdad with a U.N. mission in
mid-May. "But there's a lot of inventorying to be done, and it will take
months."

More importantly, of the 8,000 items considered the most precious by
archaeologists, only 47 are still missing.

"It is a great relief that so much of the museum's main collection is safe
and in good condition," said Ambassador Pietro Cordone, an Italian diplomat
who is senior adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Culture at the U.S.-led
Coalition Provisional Authority.

Cordone called the recovery of the artifacts a "historic moment" but added
that "there is no room for complacency."

The investigation was led by U.S. Customs Service agents and State
Department officials. Iraqi archaeologists and museum administrators could
not be reached for comment on the report or to verify the number of
recovered and missing items cited by the Americans.

U.S. officials and military commanders had come under withering
international criticism for allowing the national museum to be ransacked by
looters who carted off 3,000-year-old artifacts from the Babylonian and
Assyrian ages while troops stood by.

The U.S. investigators have been cataloguing the museum's collections since
April. Many items believed to have been stolen were actually placed in
warehouses and other locations. It was unclear today why Iraqi museum
officials earlier described the items as stolen.

At a recent conference with archaeologists in Jordan, Iraqi museum
administrators said that whatever the exact number of lost items turns out
to be, it was still a tragedy that could have been prevented if the museum
had been protected by U.S. soldiers.

At the Iraqi Central Bank, the investigators and their Iraqi counterparts
spent almost two weeks pumping water out of the basement to reveal the
inundated vault of Mesopotamian antiquities.

Inside, the team found 179 boxes containing most of the exhibit-quality
collection of the national museum, including the Treasures of Nimrud, an
ancient Assyrian city near present day Mosul in northern Iraq.

English archaeologist Austin Henry Layard started excavation at the site in
1845.

Iraqi scholar Muzahim Mahmoud Hussein discovered four royal tombs at Nimrud
in the palace of King Assur Nasir Pal II, who ruled from 883 to 859 B.C. The
site was again excavated in the late 1980s. The relics include pieces made
of ivory, gold and precious stones.

Charles Heatly, a coalition spokesman, said some water and sewage had seeped
into the vault, "but the expert assessment is that no long-term damage was
done."

Heatly said the museum, which today is guarded by U.S. troops, will reopen
some of its exhibit rooms in the next few weeks and display the recovered
treasures.

Although the museum collections are now secure, there are widespread reports
that looting has intensified at some of the most important but unprotected
archaeological sites in Iraq, including the buried cities of Uruk, Larsa and
Fara.

Staff writer Guy Gugliotta in Washington contributed to this report.


http://www.detnews.com/2003/metro/0306/08/a02-186467.htm

*  TANK IS CANVAS FOR IRAQI KIDS
by Neal Rubin
The Detroit News, 8th June

The canvas weighs 44 tons and it used to fire shells. Until early April it
was a tank, a Russian-made t55. Iraqi soldiers used it to defend a city
called Kirkuk, in their own inept and overmatched way, and our guys turned
it into a paperweight.

Then, three or four weeks ago, a small army of kids went after it with
paintbrushes. Now, John Gattorn will tell you, it's a piece of art and a
fragment of hope -- a charred and rusty fragment, sure, but in a war zone
you don't always get to polish your symbols.

Gattorn, 33, grew up in Grosse Pointe Shores. In more placid times, he was
an art student, and he liked to drive into Detroit to keep tabs on the
Heidelberg Project.

The Heidelberg Project was artist Tyree Guyton's attempt to drive out a pack
of drug dealers and turn a raggedy east side block into something fresh and
optimistic, one polka dot at a time. Slapping anything from swirls of paint
to dolls or shoes onto houses, garages and trees, he inadvertently made
himself and Heidelberg Street famous.

A decade later, with the original Heidelberg largely bulldozed and Gattorn
working for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), he came
across something near the northern Iraqi oil fields that reminded him of
home:

He stopped and took pictures, then loaded them into his computer and sent
them to the director of the Heidelberg Project, Jenenne Whitfield. She
forwarded them to someone who gave them to me, and because the world has
become a minuscule place, I was able to tap a few words into my computer and
pester Gattorn for details.

The t55 sits outside Kirkuk, an Arab city before the war, at the entrance
you'd use if you were driving from Suleymania, a Kurdish city. It's two
hours from where Gattorn works as an abuse prevention officer -- "a bit
goofy," he says of the title, "but hey."

No one was near the tank the day he drove by, and he hasn't been able to go
back to ask questions. Iraq is not exactly travel-friendly these days. But
an American sergeant told him, via e-mail, that "I actually passed the tank
the day it was being painted."

The sergeant, who didn't have permission to be quoted by name, said a pack
of what looked to be 10- to 16-year-olds "were having a great time and were
so proud. They waved at everyone who passed and had paint on everything."

He assumed adults were in charge, but he didn't notice any. What he did see
was an explosion of color from the treads to the dome-shaped turret.

On the front of the tank, beneath the barrel of the 100mm main gun, half a
dozen smiling people hold hands in a field of flowers. There's a purple
wheel near the right front and a yellow one in back.

Pinks and blues cover the base of the turret. Flowers swirl up the barrel
and more flowers dot the pavement. What you'd think of as a fender, if you
weren't looking at a tank, has pale blue hearts and a sort of white shamrock
against a field of orange.

It looks like it was painted by children with no training and no plan. It
looks fabulous.

To Gattorn, it's a reminder that "so much life and hope comes from the
simple things people do in the face of death."

His assignments usually have to do with the more complicated things. Working
for another agency before USAID, he spent time in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kosovo
and East Timor, helping insert democracy into places it hadn't been welcome.

He's been in Iraq long enough to miss the wedding of his close friend from
Grosse Pointe North High, Tim Buchanan, and to just plain miss his parents,
Barbara and Gerald. He checks in on Sunday mornings via satellite phone, his
mom says, and if he's occasionally frustrated, he's generally optimistic.

The tank was a particularly nice jolt. Gattorn took it as a sign that
brighter days are coming for Iraq, and a reminder that art can be the
perfect weapon for defiance.

Splashed across a t55, "it's a way of mocking violence," he says, a
declaration that things like faith and enthusiasm will always survive. Tanks
stall and buildings fall, but art -- unarmed and overmatched--"is there to
protect us."


FORCES OF CIVIL SOCIETY

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/159/nation/A_tribal_rivalry_may_give_clues
_to_Iraq_s_future+.shtml

*  A TRIBAL RIVALRY MAY GIVE CLUES TO IRAQ'S FUTURE
by Stephen J. Glain
Boston Globe, 8th June

MOSUL, Iraq -- Ibrahim Al Jaburi and Mashaan Al Jaburi are both leaders of
the Al Jabur, the country's largest and most powerful tribe, and both want
to become president of Iraq. One of them has his money on tradition, the
other on modernity.

Ibrahim, 56, wears billowing black robes with gold trim, a flamboyant
handlebar moustache, and a white head cover. Each day he receives petitions
from tribesmen in his diwan, the time-honored meeting place of tribal
leaders, resolving disputes and finding work for unemployed young men. In
the afternoon, he and a dozen or so guests feast on an elaborate lunch of
roasted lamb, flatbread, and rice served on a huge platter. Visitors help
themselves to handfuls of meat and rice, taking care to save the lamb's
brains for that day's guest of honor.

Mashaan, 46, is the son of a prominent Jaburi sheik. He wears a
short-sleeved khaki shirt with a zippered front. He lives in a villa
formerly owned by one of Saddam Hussein's senior henchmen. And he spends
much of his day on a computer writing memos to aides and editing columns for
a daily newspaper he owns and prints in Syria.

A well-armed security detail forms a floating perimeter around him as he
strolls through a garden that unfolds onto the Tigris. Mashaan serves his
guests beer with lunch; cooked brains of any kind aren't on the menu.

Ibrahim and Mashaan Al Jaburi are different products of the same tribal
elite vying for control of a country trying to define itself after years of
oppression.

The momentum, for now, seems to be with Ibrahim and his ancient ways. With
Hussein gone, the US occupation facing many challenges, and Iraq's political
parties in their infancy, the country's most important power center remains
the tribes. Although largely urbanized, three-quarters of all Iraqis are
members of tribes and tribal identity has intensified since the early 1990s,
as Baghdad's authority buckled under the United Nations embargo imposed
after Iraq invaded Kuwait. The tribe delivers services like health and
education, and its sheik employs a network of contacts and resources that
would be the envy of any political boss in late 19th-century New York or
Chicago.

''We are preparing to become part of society as a political group, not
merely as a tribe,'' said Ibrahim, who like all political leaders in Iraq
today is long on platitudes and short on policy positions. ''A party with [2
million] members could be the most powerful party of all.''

Ibrahim and his contemporaries see themselves first as members of tribes --
benevolent autocracies governed by a medieval code that demands obedience in
return for effective leadership. It is a system that predates Islam and has
weathered centuries of imperialism, dictatorship, and friction between
Iraq's Sunni and Shia religious groups.

Mashaan regards himself as an Iraqi. He said the tribal code in postwar Iraq
will soon be replaced by a constitution and a rule of law enforced equitably
by the state. Having spent one career working the gears of tribal affairs,
he now spends more time with US occupation officials than he does with his
fellow Jaburis, who account for just under 2 percent of Iraq's total
population of 24 million.

''I would be ashamed to be a part of a tribe,'' Mashaan said from a garden
once inhabited by Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as ''Chemical Ali'' for
allegedly using poisonous gas to kill thousands of Kurds in a 1988 revolt
against the regime. ''The people who say they are of a tribe are of a low
education,'' Mashaan said.

But in this formative stage of Iraqi democracy -- particularly with most
Iraqis preoccupied with shortages of electricity, security, and clean water
-- it is the tribes and their formidable networks that get respect. When
Colonel William Bishop, director of the 101st Airborne's civilian-military
operations in Mosul, was called upon unexpectedly two weeks ago by a prince
of the Al Yazidi tribe, he cut short his morning shower and met with the
clan leader for 30 minutes. At a meeting last week between senior US
officials and tribal leaders to address postwar conditions in Baghdad, the
sheiks gave the Americans a dressing down. The Americans, according to a
participant, took it.

Should democracy take hold in Iraq, leaders of important tribes like the Al
Jabur could emerge as important spoilers, kingmakers -- even heads of state.
''Once you get here, you understand just how strong tribal influence is in
society,'' Bishop said. ''And the Al Jaburis are particularly strong.''

That assumes the tribe can survive democratization; Mashaan Al Jaburi is
betting it won't. Unlike Ibrahim, who speaks only Arabic and rarely travels
beyond his fiefdom, Mashaan speaks fluent English as well as the strategic
cant of modern politics. In a country scarred by clan, sectarian, and ethnic
divisions, Mashaan appeals to Iraqi nationalism before tribe, religion, or
ethnicity. While Ibrahim and his family have been a fixture in Mosul for
decades, Mashaan has operated largely from exile, where he struck alliances
with Kurdish warlords and Syrian businessmen. He helped US forces in Mosul
arrange local elections but did not contest them, saving himself for a
national stage.

Few Iraqis had ever heard of Mashaan Al Jaburi until they began seeing him
on television and reading his newspaper, Alitijah al-akhar. ''I've seen him
two or three times,'' said Khalef Zidan, who runs a transportation company
in Baghdad. ''He speaks well. He has money. He seems to have a vision for
the future the rest of the parties don't have.''

The political free-for-all that followed Hussein's ouster appears to have
set Ibrahim and Mashaan into confrontation personally as well as
politically; Ibrahim was arrested and jailed for two weeks following the
surrender of Mosul by US occupation forces on information he was responsible
for a looting spree that involved stolen cars.

Ibrahim dismissed Mashaan as a carpetbagger with no more legitimacy than
other exiles who followed the Americans into Iraq after spending years in
comfort elsewhere. He seeks to build a political party with the Al Jabur --
a constituency that includes doctors, engineers, and teachers -- at its
core. In Baghdad last month, Ibrahim and several hundred leading Jaburis
flexed their political muscle at a tribal congress.

Compromise and coalition-building should come naturally to a traditional
sheik like Ibrahim, who has spent most of his life mediating everything from
petty claims to murders and rapes. When not deliberating in a diwan, he
doles out funds to his tribe for new roads, water projects, and hospitals.
The money for such largesse used to come from Hussein, who over the past
decade became increasingly dependent on tribal leaders to subdue potential
threats to his regime.

Ibrahim once deployed his tribesmen on Hussein's behalf. After the first
Persian Gulf War, when tribes in southern Iraq rose to topple the regime, it
was Jaburi sheiks like Ibrahim who helped defeat them. In 1993, Hussein
launched a campaign to rein in the increasingly powerful Jabur.

''He wanted to have us for lunch before we had him for dinner,'' Ibrahim
said.

Ibrahim was invited along with several other sheiks to a dinner hosted by
Hussein's close friend, who harangued them for alleged disloyalty. Incensed,
Ibrahim pulled a gun and shot the man four times, leaving him for dead,
although he recovered. The incident sparked a blood feud between Hussein
loyalists and Jaburi clansmen within the army that lasted months. Ibrahim
was arrested but, with the help of his tribal connections, quickly escaped
north to Mosul. An uneasy truce followed, during which Hussein slowly
replaced Jaburi officers with members of the Al Duleim, the Jabur's bitter
rival.

Mashaan, too, was once a Hussein ally, only to find himself on the wrong
side of his wrath. In 1974, he was ''appointed'' by the dictator as a
midlevel sheik, a tactic used by Hussein to play tribal factions against
each other. During Iraq's 1980-88 war with Iran, Hussein ordered Mashaan to
find recruits who were willing to sacrifice themselves for the regime.

Mashaan led a convoy of buses to his hometown near Tikrit, Hussein's
birthplace, and returned to the dictator with thousands of volunteers. If
few of them were willing to die for Hussein, Mashaan said, they were willing
to die for their tribal honor.

''They knew they probably wouldn't come back alive, but to refuse service
would be to shame your family,'' Mashaan said. ''Saddam understood this.''

In 1989, angered by Hussein's lack of gratitude for the Jaburs' sacrifice,
Mashaan said he agreed to participate in a coup against the regime. By
December, there were signs the plan had been compromised, and Mashaan fled
for a life in exile and eventually settled in Damascus where he launched the
Iraqi Homeland Party.

Mashaan is close to the regime in Syria and said he was instrumental in the
opening of the Rabieh border crossing -- although tensions stirred when
Mashaan and his family crossed there from Syria 10 days ago and his
bodyguards refused to check their weapons. He is strongly allied with the
Kurdish Democratic Party, one of two groups that govern Iraq's northern
Kurdistan.

The Iraqi Homeland Party will soon move its headquarters from Mosul to
Baghdad, Mashaan said, which he will staff with Arabs, Kurds, Shi'ites, and
Sunnis. Iraqis all, he said -- not tribesmen.

''I am from the city, not from the tribe,'' Mashaan said. ''I am an Iraqi
first, second, and third. That is the future of Iraq.''


PROBLEMS WITH SECURITY

RFE/RL IRAQ REPORT Vol. 6, No. 25, 6 June 2003

*  U.S. ADMINISTRATOR SAYS NEW MILITARY RECRUITMENT TO BEGIN IN LATE JUNE

U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer told a Baghdad press conference on 2 June
that recruitment for the "New Iraqi Corps" -- the U.S.-backed replacement
for the Iraqi Army -- will begin in late June, AP reported the same day.
Bremer also said that in the coming week the U.S. will begin hiring
thousands of demobilized enlisted men from the army to assist in cleaning up
sites that will be used by the new military. According to AP, Bremer said
that he is "fully aware" of the hardship faced by many former members of the
Iraq Army who are now out of work, stressing that "The purpose of our policy
is not to punish people." Bremer cautioned, however, that the CPA will not
be intimidated by the threats of former Iraqi army officers. "We're not
going to be blackmailed into producing [job] programs because of threats of
terrorism," Reuters quoted him as telling the press conference. He added
that the U.S. policy banning senior officers from positions in the new Iraqi
government will stand, and that he anticipates only a few exceptions will be
made to that ban. (Kathleen Ridolfo)


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21328
2003Jun5.html?nav=hptop_ts

*  U.S. SOLDIER KILLED IN IRAQI ATTACK
by Daniel Williams
Washington Post, 6th June

FALLUJAH, Iraq, June 5 -- Attackers using a rocket-propelled grenade killed
an American soldier and wounded five others in a guerrilla-style assault
less than a day after U.S. commanders greatly increased the number of troops
trying to pacify this volatile city west of Baghdad.

In the capital, meanwhile, two gunmen wounded an American soldier guarding a
bank in the city's busy Adhamiya district.

The attacks brought to eight the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq during
the past eight days and brought home the dilemma facing occupation forces as
their efforts to provide security in towns and cities make them more visible
and more vulnerable to attack.

The risk is especially high in a place like Fallujah, where many people are
openly hostile to the U.S. occupation. Moving about in convoys in heavy
traffic and setting up outposts at busy intersections, the troops make ready
targets as they sit atop tanks and armored vehicles.

On Wednesday night, a group of U.S. soldiers decided to bivouac in and
around the burned out shell of the Fallujah police station. At about 1:30
this morning, someone fired automatic weapons behind the station in what
residents in nearby homes suggested was a diversion.

Attackers then fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a Bradley Fighting
Vehicle parked in front of the station, military officials said. The blast,
which ripped open a wall, killed one soldier and wounded five others.

Troops rushed in to evacuate the wounded and clean up the debris, officials
said. Some surrounded the station, while still others ran down streets to
carry out house-to-house searches. They detained at least one person.

Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, the commander of occupation forces, has
identified Fallujah and a handful of other towns west and northwest of
Baghdad as trouble spots where what he described as "remnants" of the Baath
Party loyal to deposed president Saddam Hussein have targeted Americans. On
Wednesday, 1,500 soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division moved here from
Baghdad to reinforce 300 troops with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

Inhabitants of Fallujah contend that U.S. troops provoked their continuing
anger in April when they killed a total of 17 people during two protest
demonstrations. They also denounce the Americans for invading the privacy of
the town's conservative inhabitants, particularly with heavy-handed weapons
searches.

"Many people just don't want them in the city," said Mayor Taha Bedaiwi
Alwani, a dissident during Hussein's rule who is cooperating with U.S.
authorities.

Alwani said he has begun to think the assaults on U.S. targets have been
coordinated. "There is some kind of organization at work," he said. "I just
don't know who or what it is."

When the bulk of U.S. forces in Fallujah left the town after today's attack
and headed for camps among palm trees and desert to the west, a crowd
gathered at the police station to celebrate. A young man raised a red, white
and black Iraqi flag on a wall above a pool of blood.

"This is just the beginning. We want this to happen all over Iraq," said
Adel Ahmed. "We are not like the Palestinians. We won't submit easily.

"You should have heard the soldiers," he continued with a smile. "They
moaned until dawn."

"They don't respect the Iraqi people," said Naha Abed Rushed, a
self-described laborer who seemed to be leader of a group of young men who
entered the station. "They are invaders and they should not come to town."

Passions were further aroused with the arrival of a man holding a gruesome
photograph. It showed the smashed head of a young man who everyone said was
run over by a Bradley Fighting Vehicle on Wednesday.

Alwani, the mayor, said that Americans evidently took the victim, Ahmed
Mutlib, for an attacker as he rushed toward them on a motorcycle. A Bradley
pulled out of an intersection and intercepted him, Hamid said. U.S.
officials today said they had no information on the alleged incident.

Some bystanders at the police station said Mutlib's death ignited passions
that flared into this morning's grenade attack. "Here, for every Iraqi
killed, people absolutely must kill one American," said one man.

Soldiers raided several Fallujah neighborhoods this morning. They ran along
dusty roads while Iraqis sat languidly next to walls, trying to shield
themselves from the stifling summer heat. A mobile loudspeaker warned in
Arabic: "Keep off the streets or you will be killed or wounded. The
coalition forces do not want to hurt you. For your own safety, leave the
area immediately."

The raiders entered the duplex home of Mohammed Obeid at about 6 a.m.,
looking for weapons. An armored vehicle battered down a date palm and a
garden wall. Someone kicked in a door and shot off a lock on a cabinet in a
second-floor storeroom. Obeid said that they found nothing, and succeeded
only in spilling rice everywhere while searching through bags of grain.

"They certainly weren't very polite," Obeid said. "They could have just
knocked." He and his sons were briefly bound with plastic handcuffs during
the raid.

Obeid speculated that the soldiers had mistaken his house for an adjoining
home, which they raided moments later. There, Nuriya Mahmoud Ferhan told a
reporter that the soldiers bound and took away her husband, Hamiz Aboud.

She attributed the arrest to information provided by enemies in a family
squabble. She pointed to bullet holes in the wall and door of the house.
Cousins shot up the garden on Tuesday, she said; Aboud owes them money and
they said pay or leave town, according to Ferhan.

"Then, the next day, the Americans come and say my husband is a Baathist.
It's not true. The Americans better be careful who they listen to. The
informers -- they are the Baathists. They belong to Saddam! The Americans
should go after them!" she said.

In Baghdad, witnesses described an apparently planned attack that left one
U.S. soldier wounded.

One man approached the soldier as he stood guard at a bank, began to
converse and then shot him at close range in the neck with a pistol, a
security guard at a furniture store said.

A second soldier shot and badly wounded the assailant, but a second gunman
fired from across the street, then fled in a red sedan.

U.S. forces and Iraqi police cordoned off the neighborhood, and an MH-60
Black Hawk helicopter circled overhead as soldiers searched for the car.
"It's a shame. The Americans are our friends," said Alwan, the furniture
store security guard.

But the store's owner, Ghassan Adnan, a former army captain, said, "People
are angry at the Americans."


http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0606IraqAttacks06-ON.html

*  U.S. TROOPS ATTACKED AGAIN IN CENTRAL IRAQ
Arizona Republic, from Associated Press, 6th June

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Unidentified assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades and
small arms at a U.S. patrol near an air base west of Baghdad on Friday,
military sources said.

The attackers fired on an M1A1 Abrams tank and a military police Humvee. The
tank wasn't damaged, but the Humvee had numerous bullet holes in it,
according to field reports. Soldiers returned fire, but there were no
reports of casualties on either side.

The firefight in the town of Khaldiya, 45 miles west of Baghdad, is the
latest in a series of hit-and-run attacks by gunmen on U.S. forces in
central Iraq. Several dozen soldiers have been killed or injured.

On Thursday, gunmen shot dead an American soldier and wounded five in the
nearby city of Fallujah, where there has been strong resistance to the U.S.
occupation.

Meanwhile, U.S. military sources said that two soldiers guarding a bank in
downtown Baghdad were wounded Thursday when two men with pistols opened fire
at them. The sentries returned fire and killed one of the attackers, while
the other managed to flee, said a statement released by the U.S. Central
Command.

It said that in a separate incident in the capital, a soldier injured four
civilians when he accidentally fired his machine gun as he was picking it
up. The victims, who were struck in the legs, were evacuated. The statement
said their injuries were not life-threatening.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37082
2003Jun9.html?nav=hptop_tb

*  U.S. SOLDIERS FACE GROWING RESISTANCE
by William Booth and Daniel Williams
Washington Post, 10th June

TIKRIT, Iraq, June 9 -- Attacks on American troops are growing in frequency
and sophistication across central Iraq, a crescent of discontent and
hostility where many Iraqis remain opposed to the U.S. occupation of their
country.

Almost every day, well-organized groups of assailants using assault rifles,
rocket-propelled grenades and mortars are ambushing U.S. Army convoys,
patrols, checkpoints, garrisons and public offices used by troops to
interact with the civilian population.

In response, U.S. forces are trying to crush resistance through
house-to-house searches, arms seizures and deadly force, in some cases with
fatal consequences for innocent bystanders.

Army commanders say the attacks are locally planned and attribute them to
"remnants" of the Baath Party and other supporters of deposed Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein. While they describe the attacks as the work of a single
resistance group, they suspect that some armed fighters may be moving from
city to city, looking for vulnerable targets and pressuring the local
population to secretly support their activities. They say these fighters
appear to be staging hit-and-run actions designed to kill American troops,
but not engage them in firefights.

The persistence and evolution of tactics is giving the violence the
appearance of a guerrilla movement. In the last two weeks, eight U.S.
soldiers have been killed and another 25 wounded, according to Pentagon
announcements and news reports. The numbers of Iraqis killed, wounded or
apprehended number in the dozens.

On Sunday night, a U.S. soldier was killed at a checkpoint near the Syrian
border. The assailants first requested medical assistance for a passenger in
their vehicle and when the soldiers approached, they fired handguns at them.
U.S. troops returned fire, killing one and capturing another. At least one
assailant fled in the vehicle, according to the U.S. Central Command. The
soldier has not been identified.

The hostility to U.S. forces appears to be most intense in a region west and
north of Baghdad dominated by Sunni Muslims who were at the core of the
Baath Party and Hussein's government. Cities such as Baqubah, Samarra,
Habaniyah, Khaldiya, Fallujah and Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town, have
been particularly dangerous for U.S. troops.

"These are military-type attacks," said Capt. John Ives, of the 3rd Infantry
Division's 2nd Brigade in Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad. "It could get
worse before it gets better. It's a matter that some people want us dead.
We're just going to have to take them out." The division was recently
dispatched from Baghdad to reinforce the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in
west central Iraq.

In Tikrit early Saturday morning, U.S. troops were besieged at the central
building used by the military to deal with Iraqi civilians seeking help.
Army officers today recalled the assault as sophisticated and organized.
"They were definitely not some kids with pistols. It was well planned and
well executed. They knew where we were in the building. They had done
reconnaissance," said Army Maj. George Pitt in Tikrit, about 90 miles north
of Baghdad.

The Tikrit attack began with small-arms fire. "They were probing us, seeing
how we reacted. That's how we would have done it," Staff Sgt. Jaime Carrasco
said. "They knew how to use their weapons."

Shots were fired from protected positions on rooftops across the street and
from behind a berm. U.S. troops later found spent shells, rucksacks and food
-- signaling patience and preparation, Carrasco said.

Then, suddenly, the small-arms fire died down, and the U.S.-occupied
building was hit by at least six to eight volleys of rocket-propelled
grenades.

"Look at the shot groups," Carrasco said, pointing to the pocked mortar and
gaping holes on the third floor of the building. "See how tight they are."

The rocket-propelled grenades hit their targets within four feet of each
other. One barely missed a window. Another projectile penetrated a metal
door, flew across the room and exited through the back wall. The grenades
were fragmentary devices, designed to spew shrapnel upon impact. Only one
did, and the wall below impact was flecked with deep gouges. "This is very,
very lucky thing," Carrasco said. "Somebody was looking out for us."

Carrasco said he believed the assailants knew that this was the room where
the infantry soldiers guarding the building at night slept or relaxed on
their breaks. After the rocket propelled grenades were fired, the U.S.
forces returned fire.

During the fight, a group of military police three houses away were also
attacked. "This was coordinated. Two locations. Same time," Carrasco said.
Five soldiers were wounded, one seriously. A military policeman was shot in
the face outside the building and drowned in his own blood; medics performed
an emergency tracheotomy, but he died. The Pentagon has identified him as
Pvt. Jesse M. Halling, 19, of Indianapolis, of the 401st Military Police
Company, based at Ft. Hood, Tex. Pitt said military investigators do not
know who attacked them or why.

The Tikrit attack took place where the military does its community outreach,
taking complaints about stolen vehicles, looting, or the fate of men missing
or arrested, and answering questions from pensioners or former state
employees about when they might get paid again. The troops in the building
say they believe that some Iraqis who come seeking help during the day are
actually looking for targets to hit at night. "You can't tell friend from
foe," one soldier said.

Several soldiers said the increased hostilities had made their job of
winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis more difficult, and after the attack,
the Tikrit building was fortified with sandbags and heavier weapons.

On Sunday night, U.S. patrols arrested two men outside the building who were
carrying binoculars and rough map and outline of the site and its possible
vulnerabilities, Pitt said.

In Fallujah, there are also signs of increasing organization and tactical
efficiency of resisters, U.S. officers said. Some groups have begun to give
themselves names -- things as simple as "The Fighters," according to
graffiti on the walls in the town. Gunmen are using spotters placed along
the roads or in mosques to signal the arrival of U.S. troops, Capt. Ives
said. Once, someone cut electricity to a neighborhood as U.S. forces were
approaching.

In Fallujah early today, a convoy of seven U.S. Humvees was attacked as the
vehicles moved down Old Cinema Street, a main commercial thoroughfare. The
vehicles were ambushed by rifle fire from four sides. The Americans fired at
buildings on both sides of the street, chipping concrete off the facades. No
one on either side was injured.

There have been attacks on U.S. forces every night in Fallujah since
Wednesday, when Iraqis fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a group of
soldiers positioned at a ruined police station, killing one. The assailants
escaped. Fallujah has been embittered since U.S. forces killed 17 Iraqis
during two separate protests in April. U.S. authorities said the soldiers
fired in self defense.

"We've got to be on our toes all the time. Eyes open, scanning the
buildings. It's not tanks and infantry we're fighting anymore. It's
something more hidden," said Staff Sgt. Fred Frisbie, a military policeman.

"There's some speculation that Iraqis were disoriented when we first
arrived, but now some are getting together to organize and attack," added
Sgt. Conrad Sheley, who belongs to the 66th Military Intelligence Group of
the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "We have to get it under control."

In Fallujah, U.S. forces are rounding up suspected troublemakers, searching
houses for weapons, and patrolling every neighborhood. Closing down
Fallujah's arms market, a longtime center of business in the desert town, is
a priority, Ives said.

On Sunday, U.S. troops chased a suspected arms-parts dealer named Ahmed
Junabi into the cluttered and crowded weapons market area. U.S. officials
say that Junabi pulled out a pistol as he was fleeing the Americans in an
old Iraqi army car, which he had evidently looted. The troops shot and
killed him. Iraqi witnesses said he was unarmed.

The incident enraged merchants in the bazaar. They had grown accustomed --
even under Hussein's rule -- to smuggling and selling weapons with impunity.
"We never saw a policeman in here before. Now the Americans send in their
soldiers," said Hassan Ali Azobayi, a butcher.

Mohammed Dulaimi, a self-described engineer, led a crowd in chants of
"vengeance" and "We want Saddam." When a German reporter arrived, they
chanted, "Hitler, Hitler." One protester displayed a small bullet and
insisted it was uranium.

"You will see. We will avenge this killing. For every Iraqi dead, an
American must die," said Dulaimi.

Some of the inhabitants of Fallujah's Old Cinema Street said that today's
ambush was a response to the market killing. "We don't accept that the
Americans roam our streets," declared Khalaf Jumeili, who said he was an
Islamic scholar.

Errors are compounding the problems for the U.S. forces in Fallujah. On
Saturday night, U.S. soldiers guarding the mayor's offices shot and killed a
member of the mayor's own security detachment. The victim, Sami Montasir,
along with another guard, ran from the building to pursue two thieves they
saw loading rubber tubing onto a truck in a construction area. When the
security guards fired on the suspects, the Americans fired on them. The
second guard, Omar Menah, suffered a leg wound. "These men were doing what
they were supposed to do. They weren't shooting anywhere near the
Americans," said Lt. Ayad Abel, head of the city hall Iraqi security unit.
"The Americans are usually cool, but they have to be more careful."

The day before, a convoy of U.S. troops came under fire near the Maadithi
mosque and cemetery, located near Fallujah's railway station, U.S. officers
said. They fired into the cemetery and on adjacent roads. One Iraqi died --
a man named Kudair, according to officials in the mayor's office. Kudair was
repairing his truck on a side street.

Many residents of Fallujah are demanding that U.S. forces withdraw from the
town. The U.S. response has been to step up patrols. Almost every day,
motorists with cars battered by errant tanks or Bradley fighting vehicles
show up at city hall to ask for compensation. Maj. Peter Buotte, with the
411th Civil Affairs Battalion, said he instructs the Iraqis to fill out a
form, which he tells them will eventually result in payment for the damage.

Williams reported from Fallujah and Ramadi.




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