[A-List] Iraq: US Troops Dying At Rate Of Over One A Day

[Rick Rozoff <r_rozoff@xxxxxxxxx>]

1) US Troops Dying At Rate Of Over One A Day
2) Death Toll From Weekend Bombing Exceeds 100
3) US War Machine Nearly Fell Apart, Army Reveals
4) Japan: Civic Groups Hold Mock War Crimes Trial For
Bush, Blair, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi
5) In Violation Of Constitution, Japan Sends Troops To
Combat Zone For First Time Since 1945, Troops To Train
At US Base
6) Opposition Boycott Overshadows Japanese Troop
Deployment
7) "The Human Side Of Hitler": Hitler Watercolor
Displayed In Tokyo
8) Tony Blair's Chameleonic Shifts On Iraq 'Threat'
9) Russia: Send Inspectors Back To Iraq, Kay's
Conclusions Justify Opposition To War
10) Editorial: Shoot First, Ask Questions Later; Bush,
Blair Scurry To Effect Political Damage Control




1)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=535&ncid=535&e=1&u=/ap/20040203/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_us_deaths_3


Associated Press
February 3, 2004

U.S. Troops Dying at Rate of Over 1 a Day
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON - American soldiers are dying at a rate of
more than one a day in Iraq, despite some commanders'
recent claims to have broken the back of the
insurgency.

The toll in January was 45 ? five more than in
December ? despite hopes that deposed President Saddam
Hussein's capture would stop the killings from
roadside bombs and other attacks.

The number of deaths in January will rise to 47 when
the Pentagon changes the status of two soldiers who
are missing and believed to have died in the Tigris
River on Jan. 25. That would make the second highest
monthly total since last April when daily combat from
the U.S.-led invasion was under way.

All told, 528 U.S. troops have died in the war,
including three so far this month. The worst month was
November, when 82 died. In October there were 43,
September had 30, August 35.

Of 39 deaths in January that the Army attributed to
hostile action, 23 involved attacks with homemade
bombs, which the military calls "improvised explosive
devices," and which have been the insurgents' weapon
of choice, according to a review of Pentagon casualty
reports.

The Army has put great emphasis on defeating the
threat from homemade bombs, often detonated along
roadways used by Army convoys. Usually a remotely
transmitted signal sets them off.

To counter the threat, more soldiers are using Humvee
utility vehicles with extra armor, and troops are
wearing an improved version of body armor that
provides more protection against bomb shrapnel. Some
vehicles also are equipped now with devices that jam
the electronic signal used to detonate the bombs.

Most of the attackers are thought to be remnants of
the Baath Party that ruled Iraq under Saddam for more
than three decades, although some may be foreign
terrorists.

When U.S. troops captured Saddam near his hometown of
Tikrit on Dec. 13, some thought that would take the
punch out of the resistance. By early January, U.S.
commanders were publicly emphasizing that the number
of attacks on U.S. troops had declined, as had hostile
deaths.

Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., commander of the
82nd Airborne Division, told reporters on Jan. 6 that
"we've turned the corner" in the counterinsurgency
effort in his area of responsibility, the western part
of Iraq, which includes a part of the "Sunni Triangle"
west of Baghdad.

The number of attacks on his forces had declined by
almost 60 percent in the past month, he said then.

Two weeks later, Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander
of the 4th Infantry Division, said, "The former regime
elements we've been combating have been brought to
their knees." His troops operate in an area north of
Baghdad that includes Tikrit, a focus of anti-U.S.
violence.

But in fact, many of the fatal attacks against U.S.
forces in January were in Swannack's and Odierno's
areas. On Jan. 24, for example, three soldiers from
Swannack's force were killed in an improvised
explosive device attack in the town of Khalidiyah,
east of Ramadi, in the Sunni Triangle. Three days
later, another such attack near the same town killed
three more soldiers. Still another who was severely
wounded in the same attack died in a hospital two days
later.

On Jan. 31, three soldiers from Odierno's 4th Infantry
Division were killed when their vehicle was hit by an
improvised explosive device while traveling in a
convoy in the city of Kirkuk.

The depth and effectiveness of the insurgency is
difficult to measure with only statistics, which tend
to fluctuate over time. It appeared a few weeks ago
that many U.S. commanders had hoped the dropoff in
guerrilla action would usher in a less violent period
for U.S. troops.

That has not happened.

In an eight-day span, Jan. 9 to Jan. 16, only three
American soldiers died, and two from nonhostile
causes.

But in the two weeks after that, 26 died ? all but
three in hostile action.

L. Paul Bremer, U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq,
said Tuesday he still believes security has improved.

"I think the situation has improved importantly since
the capture of Saddam Hussein," he said.

In the four weeks after Saddam's capture, the number
of insurgent attacks against American troops
throughout Iraq did fall to an average of 18 per day
from 23 per day in the preceding four weeks.

But on Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief
of operations for the U.S. military in Baghdad, told
reporters that the daily average had climbed back to
23 in the past week.

Attacks against Iraqis also are on the rise, although
it is not clear that all those are related directly to
the insurgency. The two near-simultaneous suicide
bombings in the northern city of Irbil on Sunday, for
example, killed 101 people, U.S. military officials
said Tuesday, including top Kurdish political figures.

------------------------------------------------------
2)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1037519.htm

Reuters
February 3, 2004

Death toll from Iraq suicide bombs hits 101


US officials say the death toll from twin suicide
attacks on the offices of the main political parties
in the northern Iraqi town of Arbil at the weekend has
risen to 101.

Both the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the main parties
in Iraqi Kurdistan, lost several senior politicians
when bombers attacked on Sunday.

The attacks were timed to coincide with celebrations
for the Muslim Eid Al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice,
holiday.

A spokesman for the US-led authority in Iraq says the
number killed had risen to 101 from a previous
estimate of 67.

He says 133 people were wounded, fewer than previous
accounts of more than 200, attributing the drop to
confusion at the time of the attacks.

Kurdish television showed pictures of a man it said
was responsible for the bombing at the KDP offices and
offered a reward for anyone able to identify him.

Military officials in Iraq have said the bombings in
Arbil have a different hallmark to the hit-and-run
tactics used by Saddam Hussein loyalists fighting the
US occupation across the country.

US officers said it was too early to exclude any
insurgent groups from the investigation, but said
early indications suggested foreign groups were
probably involved.

"As I said two nights ago, no group has claimed
responsibility. We suspect that it could be any of a
number of terrorist cells. It could be Ansar Al-Islam,
Al Qaeda - we are conducting an investigation right
now," US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said.

"Our first assumptions are based on the tactics used.
When you start seeing people strap on suicide bombs
and carrying out suicide bombings your first
inclination is to sort of look foreign rather than
look here, within Iraq."

Ansar Al-Islam, whose leadership is believed to be
Kurdish, is an Islamist group the PUK accuses of links
to Al Qaeda and attacked with US Special Forces during
the US-led war on Iraq.

The bombings in the northern region of Kurdistan,
which split from Iraq following an uprising after the
1991 Gulf War, were a big shock to a community which
had been relatively calm since the fall of Saddam.
------------------------------------------------------
3)
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/03/1075776064461.html

Sydney Morning Herald
The New York Times
February 4, 2004

US war machine nearly fell apart, army reveals


The first official army history of the Iraq war
reveals that United States forces were plagued by
supply shortages, radios that could not reach
far-flung troops and virtually no reliable
intelligence on how Saddam Hussein would defend
Baghdad.

While it is well known that many army units ran low on
fuel and water as fast-moving armoured forces raced
towards the Iraqi capital, the study offers vivid new
details of a supply system nearing collapse.

Tank engines sat on warehouse shelves in Kuwait with
no truck drivers to carry them north. Broken-down
trucks were scavenged for usable parts and left by the
roadside. Artillery units cannibalised parts from
captured Iraqi guns to keep their howitzers operating.


In most cases, soldiers improvised solutions to keep
the offensive rolling.

"The morass of problems that confounded delivering
parts and supplies - running the gamut of paper clips
to tank engines - stems from the lack of a means to
assign responsibility clearly," the report concluded.

The unclassified study was ordered last year by the
former army chief-of-staff General Eric Shinseki, who
clashed with the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld,
over troop strength for postwar Iraq. It draws on
interviews with 2300 people, 68,000 photographs and
nearly 120,000 documents.

While divisional commanders could communicate with one
another, the study says, officers at lower levels
often could not. Units separated by long distances
found their radios suddenly out of range, leaving
troops to improvise solutions by using mobile phones
or secure email messaging.

Despite elaborate army planning for a final battle in
Baghdad, including the mapping of every building and
section of the city of 5.5 million people, commanders
and intelligence analysts were at a loss to determine
how the Iraqis would defend Baghdad, if at all.

Not until armoured columns carried out probes, called
"thunder runs", through Baghdad, the study found, did
American commanders realise that the city was
virtually undefended.

Senior army officials say lessons from the study are
already being incorporated.

For the most part, the study praises the army's combat
operations and the ability of soldiers and commanders
to adapt to rapidly changing battlefield conditions.
It found, however, that the extensive psychological
operations campaign - leaflets and broadcasts to coax
Iraqi soldiers to surrender and to refrain from
sabotaging oil fields - had either failed to reach
many of the intended Iraqi units or baffled the Iraqi
soldiers who received them.

"It is clear that, on the whole, psyop produced much
less than expected and perhaps less than claimed," the
report found.

The study also found that future adversaries could
draw several lessons from the war.

The forces' reliance on high-tech surveillance
satellites and aircraft could be countered by decoys
and the imaginative disguise of weaponry; more
powerful warheads for rocket-propelled grenades,
already effective against helicopters and light
vehicles such as Humvees, could offset American
armour.

Also, US forces could be drawn into a protracted,
costly urban war more effectively than they were by
the Iraqis, and they are vulnerable to classic weapons
of insurgency, such as car bombs.
------------------------------------------------------
4)
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=1&id=287019

Japan Today
February 2, 2004

Bush, Blair, Koizumi tried in mock war crimes tribunal

OSAKA ? Japanese civic groups on Sunday held a mock
war crimes tribunal to try the leaders of the United
States, Britain and Japan in connection with alleged
crimes against Iraq, which is still reeling from the
effects of the U.S.-led invasion last year.

About 500 people gathered in a hall in Osaka for the
first public hearing in Japan of the International
Criminal Tribunal for Iraq, which is being held in
various countries. The mock trial is targeted at U.S.
President George Bush, British Prime Minister Tony
Blair and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
(Kyodo News)
------------------------------------------------------
5)
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=378640&PageNum=0

Itar-Tass (Russia)
February 3, 2004

First group of Japanese troops flies to Iraq

-According to polls, the Japanese public is split half
and half on the question of whether it was necessary
for Tokyo to dispatch troops abroad into the actual
zone of military operations at the request of the U.S.
and without a U.N. sanction for the first time since
1945. The Japanese armed forces are forbidden there to
participate in combat operations.


TOKYO, February 3 (Itar-Tass) - The first group of the
main contingent of Japanese land forces departed for
Iraq on Tuesday where it will be deployed near the
city of As-Samawa, south-eastern Iraq.

Some 90 officers and men aboard a government special
airliner flew on Tuesday from the Titose air base in
the island of Hokkaido for an intermediate stop in
Kuwait. A Russian transport plane An-124 Ruslan also
took off from the Titose base in the same direction.
It carries armoured carriers, recoilless guns,
ammunition, bulldozers and building materials for the
group.

On getting military equipment in Kuwait, Japanese
troops will hold training sessions at a U.S. military
base. Then, they will form a convoy of 50 trucks, will
cross the Iraqi border and will arrive in the area of
As-Samawa, where there is already a forward Japanese
group of 30.

All of them will start building a fortified compound
near As-Samawa. Some 550 Japanese troops will be
stationed there by April, and they will start
fulfilling some humanitarian projects, above all water
purification. Japanese air force and naval groups will
also operate in Iraq, while the total numerical
strength of the Japanese contingent will total 1,000
men in that country.

The Japanese Defence Agency leased six Ruslan planes
from the Russian Volga-Dnepr Company to airlift
military equipment to Iraq. One of them already
brought eight light armoured vehicles to Kuwait for
the forward group in mid-January.

According to polls, the Japanese public is split half
and half on the question of whether it was necessary
for Tokyo to dispatch troops abroad into the actual
zone of military operations at the request of the U.S.
and without a U.N. sanction for the first time since
1945. The Japanese armed forces are forbidden there to
participate in combat operations. They are obliged to
retreat immediately in case of a dangerous situation.
------------------------------------------------------
6)
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1073281471279&p=1012571727169

Financial Times
February 2, 2004

Opposition boycott overshadows Japan troops vote
By David Pilling in Tokyo

-Mr Koizumi has laid his political future on the line
by pushing ahead with plans to send more than 1,000
troops to southern Iraq in by far Japan's biggest
deployment to a conflict zone since the second world
war.
-More than half of people polled said they were
opposed to sending troops before the security
situation improved, with many against sending ground
forces abroad under any circumstances.
-Naoto Kan, leader of the DPJ [Democratic Party of
Japan], criticised the government for railroading the
dispatch through parliamentary committees, saying it
was trying to stifle debate.




An opposition boycott of parliament overshadowed a
historic decision by the lower house this weekend to
approve the dispatch of troops to Iraq, underlining
deep divisions over the issue among Japanese
policymakers.


The opposition Democratic Party of Japan, together
with the smaller Communist and Social Democratic
parties, boycotted Saturday's plenary session after
heated discussion on Friday had led to scuffles in the
Diet building.

There were even public divisions within the ruling
Liberal Democratic party, which normally settles its
differences behind closed doors. Three political
heavyweights, including Koichi Kato, a one-time
prominent political ally of Junichiro Koizumi, the
prime minister, walked out of the debate in apparent
opposition to the controversial dispatch.

Mr Koizumi has laid his political future on the line
by pushing ahead with plans to send more than 1,000
troops to southern Iraq in by far Japan's biggest
deployment to a conflict zone since the second world
war.

An advanced party of about 30 ground troops has been
sent to Samawah in southern Iraq, though such is the
media interest that the soldiers are outnumbered by
journalists by at least three to one.

The prime minister has spent months trying to persuade
a sceptical public that Japan needs to become involved
in such missions if it is to play a responsible role
on the world stage. The dispatch stretches to breaking
point Japan's pacifist constitution, which forbids the
country from maintaining an army or taking part in
collective self-def-ence.

If Japanese troops suffered casualties or were
involved in fighting, the issue would be certain to
dominate July's upper house elections.

Analysts said the direction of public opinion was hard
to predict.

More than half of people polled said they were opposed
to sending troops before the security situation
improved, with many against sending ground forces
abroad under any circumstances.

Casualties could harden the pacifist attitude or lead
to a rallying of support for Japan's deployment,
analysts said.

Naoto Kan, leader of the DPJ, criticised the
government for railroading the dispatch through
parliamentary committees, saying it was trying to
stifle debate.
-----------------------------------------------------
7)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1037430.htm

Australian Broadcasting Company
Kyodo News
February 4, 2004

Painting by Hitler to go on show in Tokyo


A watercolour by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler will be put
on display on Saturday at a theater in Tokyo to
coincide with the screening of a film about his
artistic ambitions.

Toshiba Entertainment, distributor of the film Max, a
joint Hungarian, Canadian and British production, said
it is taboo in Europe to display art by Hitler, but
the piece is invaluable material with which people can
have a "level-headed view of the human side of
Hitler".

Directed by Menno Meyjes, Max imagines a post-World
War I friendship between a young Hitler and a Jewish
art dealer.

Hitler dreamed of becoming an artist before entering
politics, and produced about 2,000 works starting in
1908.

Many works are little known as they were either
confiscated by US forces or are owned by individuals.

The undated painting that will be put on display at
Theatre Times Square features the Karlskirche, a
church in Vienna.

The work is to be auctioned in Germany in May, the
organizers
said.

The exhibit will run until February 15.
------------------------------------------------------
8)
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/03/1075776059343.html

The Age (Australia)
Daily Telegraph (UK)
February 4, 2004

PM's constantly changing stance on Iraqi threat


Toby Helm traces the shifts in Tony Blair's position
since concerns that Saddam Hussein had a hidden
arsenal first came to the fore.

What the British Government said about the threat from
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction:

BEFORE THE WAR

September 24, 2002: The Government's dossier on the
threat from Saddam's weapons - Iraq's Weapons of Mass
Destruction, The Assessment of the British Government
- is published.

Tony Blair, in his foreword, wrote that the document
"discloses that his (Saddam's) military planning
allows for some of his WMD to be ready within 45
minutes of an order to use them".

September 25: Mr Blair said during a Commons debate on
Iraq: "His (Saddam's) weapons of mass destruction
program is active, detailed and growing. The policy of
containment is not working. The WMD program is not
shut down. It is up and running now."

November 18: Mr Blair, speaking on radio, made it
clear the aim was to disarm Saddam of his WMD, rather
than to remove him from power. "I have got no doubt
that the purpose of our challenge from the UN is
disarmament of weapons of mass destruction. It is not
regime change."

January 2003: The Government's "dodgy" dossier on the
threat from Iraq is published (compiled in part from
an out-of-date PhD thesis).

It says the material shows "how the Iraqi regime is
constructed to have and to keep WMD and is now engaged
in a campaign of obstruction of the United Nations
weapons inspectors".

February 25: Mr Blair reinforced the message that WMD
disarmament was the aim and said Saddam could stay in
power if he gave up his weapons.

March 18: In the Commons Mr Blair ridiculed claims
that Saddam had no WMD. "We are now seriously asked to
accept that in the last few years, contrary to all
history, contrary to all intelligence, he decided
unilaterally to destroy the weapons. Such a claim is
palpably absurd."

AFTER THE WAR

April 28, 2003: At a press conference almost three
weeks after the fall of Baghdad, Mr Blair said people
should not rush to conclude there had been no WMD just
because Saddam had not used them.

July 9: Addressing parliamentary select committee
chairmen, Mr Blair shifted ground, saying evidence
would be found of Saddam's WMD "programs", thereby
suggesting the weapons might not turn up. "I have
absolutely no doubt at all that we will find evidence
of weapons of mass destruction programs."

December 16: On the BBC Mr Blair moved again, saying
the investigation was now trying to find out what
happened to the WMD. "I'm confident that when the Iraq
Survey Group has done its work we will find what's
happened to those weapons, because he had them."

The same day, in a broadcast for British Armed Forces
Broadcasting, Mr Blair claimed the Iraq Survey Group
had made a breakthrough in finding evidence of the
programs. "The Iraq Survey Group has already found
massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine
laboratories, workings by scientists, plans to develop
long-range ballistic missiles."

January 12, 2004: Mr Blair tells the BBC's Breakfast
with Frost program that he, too, is not sure WMD would
be found. "In a land mass twice the size of the UK it
may well not be surprising that you don't find where
this stuff is hidden."

January 25: In an interview with The Observer Mr Blair
said he still had faith in the intelligence. "I can
only tell you I believe the intelligence we had at the
time. It is absurd to say in respect of any
intelligence that it is infallible but, if you ask me
what I believe, I believe the intelligence was correct
and I think we will have an explanation."
------------------------------------------------------
9)
http://www.hindu.com/2004/02/04/stories/2004020402811400.htm

The Hindu
February 3, 2004

Send inspectors to Iraq again, says Moscow
By Vladimir Radyuhin

-"The conclusions reached by the group of American
weapons inspectors for Iraq led by David Kay coincide
with the pre-war findings regarding weapons of mass
destruction.
"They bear out the relevance and righteousness of the
Russian stand in favour of resolving the Iraq problem
through political means with the help of inspections,
rather than by military means."


MOSCOW, FEB. 3. Russia has called on the United
Nations Security Council to resume international
weapon inspections in Iraq.

The U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission (UNMOVIC) must return to Iraq carry to
completion the mandate it has from the U.N. Security
Council, a senior Russian diplomat said today.

"It is necessary to clarify the issues related to
Iraq's prohibited weapons programmes," said the Deputy
Foreign Minister, Yuri Fedotov, after talks with the
UNMOVIC acting head, Demetrius Perricos.

The Foreign Ministry announced today that Russia had
formally asked the U.N. Security to send back UNMOVIC
and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
inspectors to Iraq to "finally close the issue of
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq".

"The conclusions reached by the group of American
weapons inspectors for Iraq led by David Kay coincide
with the pre-war findings regarding weapons of mass
destruction," Mr. Fedotov said.

"They bear out the relevance and righteousness of the
Russian stand in favour of resolving the Iraq problem
through political means with the help of inspections,
rather than by military means."

Russia has offered UNMOVIC its laboratory facilities
for testing chemical, bacteriological and biological
samples that may be taken in Iraq when U.N. inspectors
return to finish their work.
------------------------------------------------------
10)
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_559195,0012.htm

The Hindustan Times
February 4, 2004

Editorial: Who dunnit?

In the true Texan fashion of shooting first and asking
questions later, the US now wants to know who said
Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction when he
didn?t.

Washington had no option but to order a probe after
the chief weapons inspector returned empty-handed from
Iraq to say that he couldn?t find any WMDs. Since this
revelation knocks the bottom out of the Bush
administration?s claim that the Iraqi tyrant was a
?growing? threat, an inquiry could no longer be
avoided, especially in an election year. Now, as the
investigation drags on, Mr Bush will be able to tell
the voters that nothing definite can yet be said
either way. Even then, the US president probably knows
that in his hurry to go to war, he has probably handed
his Democratic opponents a handy stick to beat him
with.

Across the Atlantic, Tony Blair, too,  has had no
alternative but to order a similar probe. After all,
he was no less insistent than Mr Bush in asserting
that Iraq had WMDs. These two may still try to change
the argument by saying that, whether there were WMDs
or not, the world is a safer place with Mr Hussein
behind bars. But such ploys will not dilute the main
charge against them ? that they launched a pre-emptive
strike on the basis of wrong information.

Another ploy may be to pass the buck to the
intelligence agencies. Since it was they who were
wrong, the president and the prime minister cannot be
blamed. But an attempt of this nature may backfire if
it comes to light that the White House and 10, Downing
Street put pressure on the agencies to provide the
information which Mr Bush and Mr Blair wanted to hear.
It?s, therefore, a lose-lose situation for both of
them.





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