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*IRAQ: latest news and developments

Sophisticated strikes threaten British withdrawal from Iraq
British forces were due to leave Maysan and the neighbouring desert province of al-Mathana early next year, after the general election due to be held in Iraq on 15 December. But they are concerned by recent discoveries of good-quality munitions, including RPGs, land mines, triggering mechanisms and explosives, being brought across the border from Iran.

An articulated lorry recently stopped by Iraqi border police was full of rockets, grenades and launchers. The arms, and training in their use, are believed to have been provided by local militias and units of the Revolutionary Guard across the border, though not necessarily sanctioned by Tehran.
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Iraqi government aims to ration fuel
Baghdad, July 31 - Iraqi government officials here are looking into creating a coupon program to ration fuel for next winter.

Rationing aims to put a dent into the black market sale of oil products "and lead to more equitable distribution for all Iraqis," Petroleum Ministry Spokesman Assem Jihad said.

Since the April 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein's regime the supply of oil products, especially gasoline, has been effectively -- if not officially -- rationed. Iraqis have been forced to stand in lines of up to two hours at the pump to get fuel.

The alternative: buy gas on the black market, with prices 25 times higher. While the liter of gas at the pump is 20 dinars (one US cent), on the black market it sells at 500 dinars (33 US cents).
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Seven Marines Killed In Separate Attacks
BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said Tuesday that six Marines were killed in action in western Iraq, pushing the death toll for Americans since the start of the war past 1,800. The Marines, assigned to Regimental Combat Team-2 of the 2nd Marine Division, died Monday in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. A seventh Marine was killed Monday by a car bomb in Hit, 50 miles southeast of Haditha in the volatile Euphrates River valley.

Insurgents posted handbills in Haditha, claiming to have killed 10 U.S. troops, seizing some of their weapons. At least 1,801 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,382 died as a result of hostile action. The figures include five military civilians. In other violence, a roadside bomb targeting a U.S. military convoy exploded Tuesday at the entrance to a tunnel in central Baghdad, and at least 29 civilians were wounded, officials said. The blast hit as the convoy was about to enter the tunnel in Bab Shargi, near Tahrir Square, said police Capt. Abdul-Hussein Munsif. Two Humvees appeared to have been damaged, he said. The bomb left a 3-foot-wide crater in the ground. Charred parts from the armored Humvee littered the site and seven civilian cars were also badly damaged.

U.S. troops took away some items from the damaged armored vehicle, including a helmet and two flak jackets.

In Samarra, 60 miles north of the capital, an explosion about 5 a.m. Tuesday damaged a pipeline used for shipping fuel from the Beiji refinery to a power station in the Baghdad area, police said. Insurgents have frequently targeted the line to interrupt electricity in the Baghdad area - already critically low as demand rises in the summer.
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http://www.komotv.com/stories/38316.htm
 
Some of the reported attacks in Iraq over the lasty 7 days. Bare minimum of 139 dead.

-A tank truck was shot at by U.S. soldiers when it tried to overtake their patrol in Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, killing one Iraqi and injuring two, a police source said.

-Head of Khaluss hospital was shot dead by gunmen in Baquba. A police source said that Dr. Abdul Muhsin Ali, member of Da'wa party, was leaving a health conference when he was shot. His driver was wounded in the attack.

-In another incident, a civilian was killed and five wounded, four of them policemen, when a suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol in the centre of Baquba, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said.

-Gunmen Kill 5 Iraqis in Baghdad - Five of the victims were shot when gunmen opened fire as they left a city hospital where they had been to see the body of a Sunni cleric who was killed last night.

-Col Mizhir Hamad Yousif, director of the Abu Ghraib police station, was ambushed on his way to work by three gunmen, said Capt Mohammed Izzedin. Yousif’s driver was also injured in the attack.

-Late on Monday, Shaikh Akil al-Mahadidi, a cleric from al-Muhajirin mosque, and his brother were shot dead in the west of Baghdad.

-One Iraqi soldier was killed and six injured when a roadside bomb struck near their patrol in Tuz Khurmatu, 60 km (40 miles) south of Kirkuk, a police source said.

-Gunmen killed a brigadier in the Iraqi security forces on Monday, opening fire on his car as he crossed a Baghdad bridge, an interior ministry source said.

-Twenty bodies of people who had been shot or beheaded were discovered in southwest Baghdad on Monday, a police source said. The source said witnesses...they saw a truck dump the bodies near a school in the Om al-Ma'alif area in southwest Baghdad.

-Insurgents attacked a minibus transporting Iraqi civilians working at an American base, killing three and critically wounding three others in Baiji, 180 km (112) north of Baghdad, on Saturday night.

-Gunmen opened fire on a group of cooks leaving a military base in Baquba, killing one and wounding three in the town 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said

-Gunmen opened fire on the convoy of Ibrahim Issawi, senior adviser to the minister of environment, killing one of his security guards and wounding three on Saturday. The attack took place in the southern Shi'ite town of Kufa.

-An Iraqi translator for the U.S. military was shot dead by gunmen as he was leaving his house in Kirkuk, 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, police said

-Elsewhere in Baghdad, an Iraqi soldier in civilian clothes was assassinated Sunday in the western neighborhood of Iskan, police said.

-Convoy attack kills Chalabi bodyguard bodyguard of Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi was killed Sunday and three others wounded in an attack on their convoy south of Baghdad, a Baghdad emergency police official said. The official said Chalabi was not in the convoy.

-A roadside bomb killed an Iraqi civilian and wounded three in a car on a road south of Baghdad, police said.

-A prominent Arab Sunni leader escaped an assassination attempt in Baghdad on Saturday and his bodyguard was wounded, said a spokesman for his group, The Iraqi National Dialogue.

-An American soldier and an Iraqi civilian were killed in a roadside bombing, authorities said. A 3rd Infantry Division spokesman said the soldier died and two others were wounded in the southwestern neighborhood of Dora.

-A car bomb has exploded near a theater in Iraq, killing seven people and injuring 25. The blast in Baghdad apparently was aimed at police. Officials say three policemen were killed and four wounded.

-Police and hospital officials say the bodies of two Baghdad International Airport employees and their driver have been discovered in a field in southwestern Baghdad.

-One Iraqi was killed and 11 others were wounded in a a blast of a booby-trapped car driven by a suicide bomber who attacked a patrol of the American Army in the northern city of Mosul on Friday, police said.

-One person was killed and 10 others injured when a car bomb exploded near a group of Iraqis drinking on the banks of the Tigris river in Baghdad, police said. The vehicle exploded near a bridge in the Attafiyah district of the capital.

-Also Saturday, the death toll from a suicide bomb attack on army volunteers in a town near the Syrian border rose to 52 (Rabia) from 25 after some of the wounded died overnight, police said. The number of wounded nearly doubled to 93.

-Iraqi Translator Killed - An Iraqi civilian working as a translator at a US base was killed in Ouja village, 10 km south of Tikrit, said the US coordination centre.

-Seven beheaded bodies found near Iraqi capital - The murder victims were five police officers and two Iraqi civilians who worked for the US Army. Doctors said the killing appeared to have taken place about three days ago, and the bodies showed signs of torture.

-Three Iraqis were killed and eight others were injured in separate attacks against two checkpoints in the city of Baakooba, north-east of Baghdad, a police source said Thursday.

-In Kirkuk gunmen assassinated Saleh Jabbouri, a member of the local Arab Consultative Council. Also, 10 employees of the Ministry of industry were wounded when gunmen sprayed them with automatic rifle fire in a northern suburb of Baghdad.
A suspected bomb on a railway line hit a train carrying oil products near Baghdad on Thursday, causing a huge fire, Iraqi police said. They said one person was killed and four wounded in the blaze.

-The assistant chief of Haditha police station 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Baghdad was shot dead, the head of Haditha hospital Dr Waleed al-Hadithi said.

-Six Iraqi soldiers were killed in clashes with insurgents in two towns north of Baghdad on Thursday, security sources said. The fighting began when guerrillas fired mortars and light arms at three checkpoints in Baquba and two in Khan Bani Saad.

-A suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to a Baghdad hospital on Wednesday, killing at least five people and wounding 10. They said the bomber attacked security forces at the gate to Numaa hospital in Baghdad's Athamiya district.
Iraq Militants have shot and killed seven Iraqi soldiers who were guarding a water plant north of Baghdad. Iraqi defense officials say about 20 rebels armed with hand grenades and light weapons drove up and opened fire on the soldiers yesterday in the town of Tarmiyah. No other details on the attack were available.
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Spy's Notes on Iraqi Aims Were Shelved, Suit Says
WASHINGTON, July 31 - The Central Intelligence Agency was told by an informant in the spring of 2001 that Iraq had abandoned a major element of its nuclear weapons program, but the agency did not share the information with other agencies or with senior policy makers, a former C.I.A. officer has charged.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court here in December, the former C.I.A. officer, whose name remains secret, said that the informant told him that Iraq's uranium enrichment program had ended years earlier and that centrifuge components from the scuttled program were available for examination and even purchase.

The officer, an employee at the agency for more than 20 years, including several years in a clandestine unit assigned to gather intelligence related to illicit weapons, was fired in 2004.

In his lawsuit, he says his dismissal was punishment for his reports questioning the agency's assumptions on a series of weapons-related matters. Among other things, he charged that he had been the target of retaliation for his refusal to go along with the agency's intelligence conclusions.

Michelle Neff, a C.I.A. spokeswoman, said the agency would not comment on the lawsuit.

It was not possible to verify independently the former officer's allegations concerning his reporting on illicit weapons.
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Iraqi government fires top Sunni official
BAGHDAD - A leading Sunni official in Iraq says he has been sacked by the government over his outspoken complaints against the killings and arrests of members of his community by the police.

Adnan Dulaimi, head of the Waqf, or religious endowment authority in Iraq, said he had received a letter from Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari on Tuesday announcing his replacement in the post.

"I have been chased out of my job because I defend the Sunnis," Dulaimi said.

The move could aggravate tensions between the Shiite-led government and the minority Sunni community, which has lost its once dominant role in Iraq following the ousting of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.

"I am asking for unconditional release of all imprisoned Sunnis and I demand that tortures, murders and kidnappings targeting members of this community be halted. I quite simply want an end to the violence," Dulaimi said.
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Iraqi Kurds demand say over northern oilfields
AMMAN (Reuters) - Iraq's Kurds want at least partial control over northern oil resources in a post-war political system that ends uneven distribution of wealth, Planning Minister Barham Salih said on Friday.

The Kurds, who emerged as a powerful faction in postwar Iraq along with the Shi'ite majority, are lobbying for a new constitution being drafted to allow all provinces, including southern oil centers, to participate in oil decision making, Salih, who is a leading Kurdish politician, told Reuters.

If this succeeds, foreign oil firms will have to negotiate about developing fields in the country with the second largest reserves in the world with provincial governments eager to raise their share of oil revenue, as well as with central government.

"We call for allowing the provinces to participate in managing the oil sector because the strict central system of managing it has proved its failure," said Salih, who was in Amman after meeting British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London.

Salih said negotiations to decentralize power over the economy, allowing more say for northern Kurdish provinces and the mostly Shi'ite south, were crucial for the success of the new federal constitution.

"There are different opinions in the constitutional committee about ownership of resources. Some are demanding (local) ownership and others are demanding general national ownership," he said.

"We must not repeat the past monopoly by a few of resources," he said, referring to Saddam's Tikriti clan.
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Worth reading the article just to note the allegations the dead journo made in his last article re: Basra police.

American journalist shot dead in Iraq
An American journalist has been found shot dead in Basra four days after he wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times criticising the spread of Shi'ite Islamist fundamentalism in the southern Iraqi city. Witnesses said Steven Vincent and a translator were kidnapped by gunmen shortly after leaving a hotel on Tuesday evening. His body was found later that night, a U.S. diplomat said. A nurse said he had been shot repeatedly in the chest.

Vincent's death appeared to mark the first targeted killing of a Western journalist in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. Other reporters have been killed after being swept up in the violence plaguing the country, but were apparently killed for being Westerners rather than because they were journalists.

......

The New York Times opinion piece criticised the failure of British forces to clamp down on what Vincent described as a city that was "increasingly coming under the control of Shi'ite religious groups, from the relatively mainstream ... to the bellicose followers of the rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr".

The article also focused on the Basra police force, quoting a police lieutenant as saying a few officers were perpetrating many of what he said were hundreds of assassinations of mostly former members of Saddam's Baath party each month. Iraqi Arab Sunni leaders have accused the Iraqi government of sanctioning Shi'ite hit squads that work alongside security and police forces. The religious Shi'ite-led government denies the accusations.
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I think im right in saying that this is probably the biggest US loss of life in a single IED attack.

Iraq bomb attack kills 14 marines
Fourteen marines and their civilian translator have been killed in a roadside bombing in north-western Iraq, the US military says. It is one of the deadliest attacks on US forces since the 2003 invasion. It happened near the city of Haditha, in the same area as an incident on Monday in which six US marines were killed by hostile gunfire. The city is near the Syrian border in an area that has seen frequent insurgent assaults against US troops. The bomb is reported to have exploded near an amphibious assault vehicle travelling south of Haditha. One other marine was wounded.
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http://www.icasualties.org/oif/prdDetails.aspx?hndRef=8-2005
 
Another US fuck up.

Scorpion teams were mistaken for insurgents and attacked by US soldiers
Before the start of the US-led war in Iraq in March 2003, the CIA recruited and trained a paramilitary group named the Scorpions to foment rebellion, The Washington Post said Wednesday. Authorized by President George W. Bush in March 2002 as part of a policy of "regime change" in Iraq, the Scorpions were made up mostly of exiles recruited by the Kurds who were sent to Iraqi cities including Baghdad, Fallujah and Qaim to give the impression that a rebellion was under way, current and former US intelligence officials told the daily. Trained with millions of dollars to conduct light sabotage, the covert unit was even given former Soviet Hind helicopters, but most of its missions were delayed and it ended up merely "sowing confusion", by painting graffiti on walls or cutting electricity.

The speed of the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, intelligence officials said, negated most of the Scorpions' missions. So after the war, the CIA used the Scorpions to try to infiltrate the insurgency, to act as translators, to help out in interrogations and, from time to time, to do "the dirty work," one official said. In one case, members of the Scorpions wearing masks and carrying clubs and pipes beat up an Iraqi general in the presence of CIA and US military personnel, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post. The CIA's control over the Scorpions weakened as chaos grew in Iraq, another intelligence official said. "Even though they were set up by us, they weren't well supervised," said the official. The Scorpion teams, who after the war wore civilian clothes and traveled in civilian vehicles, were mistaken for insurgents and attacked by US soldiers, the officials said.
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In addition to the 14 dead US troops in the IED attack, the BBC is reporting that one marine may have been captured, but that this can't be confirmed.
 
I hope this is untrue for this guy's sake. Poor bastard :-(

US Marine captured in Iraq http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=3554083
An Iraqi insurgent group said overnight it has captured a US Marine who was wounded in a clash in western Iraq in which eight other Marines were killed. The Army of Ansar al-Sunna said on its Web site that it would soon issue pictures of the Marine, who it said it captured after ambushing US forces near the town of Haditha, northwest of Baghdad. It did not say when it carried out the attack.
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Pentagon denies capture. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03697315.htm

The Pentagon on Wednesday denied a claim by an Iraqi insurgent group that it had captured a U.S. Marine in western Iraq.

"I don't have anything to suggest that is accurate. I have no indication that there are any unaccounted for personnel," Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters in response to questions.

An Iraqi insurgent group said earlier in the day it had captured a U.S. Marine who was wounded in a clash in western Iraq in which eight other Marines were killed. The Army of Ansar al-Sunna said on its Web site that it would soon issue pictures of the Marine, who it said it captured after ambushing U.S. forces near the town of Haditha, northwest of Baghdad. The U.S. military said on Tuesday six Marines were killed on Monday in the same area. The body of one Marine was initially unaccounted for but was recovered later, according to the statement.
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John Robb offering a some comment on a Defense News Piece on Iraqi IEDs.
Small, highly skilled IED cells often operate as a package and hire themselves out to the more well-known insurgent groups, such as Amman Al Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq or the Sunni group Ansaar al Sunna. They advertise their skills on the Internet and are temporarily contracted on a per-job basis, but otherwise remain autonomous. This more linear, rather than pyramidal structure, means a decapitation operation is not an option. The IED cells are patient and methodical and they follow an identifiable operational cycle. Five days is usually spent conducting reconnaissance of prospective targets, conducting pattern analysis of U.S. patrols and looking for vulnerabilities.
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AQ always looked primitive compared to PIRA; this looks like a radical advance into a free market terrorism and they're doing it under the nose of the US millitary. We've got a real monster developing in Iraq.
 
Ive lost the report but one US military source said that the bombs curently being used are getting more and more powerful. Its estimated tha some are as large as 500-600lbs and that they are being 'shaped' to provide maximum damage.

Just out of interest ive been watching news reports on Afghanistan and its perhaps no coincidence that there has been an increase in the number of IED attacks in the country on both Afghan officials and US troops. There's no direct proof, but you have to wonder how much of this is down to a transfer of knowledge by some of those operating in Iraq?
Two U.S. service members and an Afghan interpreter were wounded early today when their patrol was struck by an improvised explosive device north of Deh Rahwod in Oruzgan province.
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At least four soldiers were wounded on Tuesday when a remote-controlled bomb hit their vehicle in tribal area near the Afghan border, an army officer said.
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Two US service members and an Afghan interpreter were wounded early Saturday in a bomb explosion in southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, US military said.
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A Pakistani army major was wounded yesterday as militants unleashed a barrage of more than 30 rockets on four different army locations near the Afghan border. Another army officer was slightly injured when a bomb hit his patrol convoy overnight
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A roadside bomb exploded in eastern Afghanistan, striking a U.S. military convoy and wounding six American troops, the U.S. military said Monday.
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A bomb has exploded in front of a police station in the Afghan capital Kabul. Two officers and one civilian were injured in the blast, which happened as a United Nations vehicle passed by.
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http://icasualties.org/oef/
 
Two Iraq Veterans Commit Suicide Near Fort Hood
FORT HOOD, Texas -- Two young Fort Hood soldiers who served in the Iraq war have killed themselves in separate incidents in Killeen since the weekend, post officials said Wednesday.

Sgt. Robert Decouteaux, 24, of Rosedale, N.Y., died Saturday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had been airlifted from his home to a Temple hospital for emergency surgery, but he died while doctors tried to save his life.

And on Monday morning, Spc. Robert Hunt, 22, of Houston, was found dead in his apartment by Killeen police, who were alerted after members of his unit tried to contact him when he failed to report to work.

Carol Smith, a Killeen police spokeswoman, said Wednesday that Hunt's cause of death was listed as asphyxiation.

Decouteaux, a soldier for five years, was an M-1 tank mechanic assigned to the 4th Infantry Division.

Fort Hood spokesman Dan Hassett said Decouteaux served in Iraq from April 2003 to March 2004, and that he was scheduled to redeploy when the division returns to the war zone beginning this fall.

Hunt, a radio operator-maintainer, joined the Army as a teenager in 2001 and had been assigned to Fort Hood since August 2003.
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Another report on the killings in Basra. Nearly 1,000 targeted killings since the fall of Saddam - that includes Shi'ites as well as Sunni's. Worth a read.

Unofficial de-Baathification process targets Sunnis in Basra
BASRA, Iraq - Scores of assassinations have marred the relative peace and prosperity of Iraq's southern port of Basra, a city near the Iranian border that's dominated by Shiite Muslims and has been spared the extreme violence of Baghdad. The assassins have targeted mostly men who are thought to have been connected to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, which was dominated by Sunni Muslims. About 950 people have been killed since Saddam's regime was toppled in April 2003, according to Majid al Sari, the Defense Ministry adviser for the southern region. About half of the dead, al Sari said, are Sunnis, who make up about 30 percent of the city's population.

As a result, many Sunni families are selling their homes and migrating to other provinces and countries. They aren't the only victims.

"Even among those Baathists who have been killed there were Shiites," al Sari said. "Daily we find bodies, and 90 percent of them are political crimes." Many of the killings are attributed to men in police patrol cars who kidnap and kill or commit drive-by shootings. On Wednesday, American freelance journalist Steven Vincent joined the list of those murdered in the city. He was abducted after leaving a money exchange shop and later was found shot to death at the side of a highway. Vincent had published an opinion article in Sunday's New York Times charging that Shiite militiamen had infiltrated Basra's police. He quoted a police lieutenant who said a small number of police officers were behind Basra's murders.

Brigadier Chris Hughes, the British commander of the 12th Mechanized Brigade in Basra, confirmed the charges in an interview with Knight Ridder, saying there were "murderers" among the police. There have been some 80 killings since May, he said. "The chief of police is not directing that type of activity. Neither is he able to stop it," Hughes said. "Quite a lot of them come under the umbrella of unofficial de-Baathification."
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Straw comments on Iraq branded 'monstrous'
The Conservatives have slammed Jack Straw's admission in a newspaper interview that British troops in Iraq are "part of the problem". In an interview with the FT on Tuesday, the foreign secretary acknowledged the effect of the continued insurgency amid political instability.

"Things are not good there at the moment," he admitted. But Straw insisted that a new Iraqi constitution can be agreed by the September deadline. The more certainty you have on that, the more you can have a programme for the withdrawal of troops which is important for the Iraqis," he said. "Because - unlike in Afghanistan - although we are part of the security solution there, we are also part of the problem."

That remark provoked strong condemnation from shadow defence spokesman Gerald Howarth.

"I cannot believe that someone of Jack Straw's standing and experience should offer such a grave insult to our troops who are daily risking their lives to provide security and democracy in Iraq," he said. "To suggest that our armed forces who have secured the rebuilding of countless schools, hospitals and other facilities of benefit to ordinary Iraqis are helping fuel the terrorist insurgency in the country is monstrous.

"These comments from someone with no direct of experience of what these brave men and women go through on a daily basis, could not have been better designed to undermine the morale and reputation of our armed forces."
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Iraq constitution omits rights
The committee drafting Iraq's new constitution is determined to complete this all-important blueprint for a new permanent government by Aug. 15. Meeting the deadline is a worthy resolve, pushing Iraq's political process into the next crucial stage toward democracy. But details emerging from the debate on proposed drafts are far from reassuring. The United States has a duty to object to the most glaring flaws and prod the committee to ensure that individual rights are protected in the final draft. Its ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad is wading into the debate.

Leaked excerpts of current drafts paint the picture of a constitution that would fail to guarantee equal rights to women or to protect freedom of religion or belief and the right to political dissent and debate. Basic individual rights, perhaps even the constitution itself, would be protected only if they were not viewed as contrary to judicial interpretation of Islamic law, sharia. Some proposed drafts would limit Iraq's obligation to respect international human rights only if such rights don't contradict Islamic tenets. Without basic individual rights being enshrined in it, the constitution would fall far short of meeting the U.S. dream of establishing a real working democracy in Iraq.

It was good to see Washington's new envoy, Khalilzad, insert himself in the raucous debate over the constitution this week by declaring in public that equal rights for women was a fundamental requirement of democracy. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier made much the same point, just as forcefully, to Iraqi leaders. It was an appropriate reversal of the administration's policy not to interfere with the Iraqi government's internal disputes.
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NYT points suspiciously at an Iranian source for new generation of heavy armor penetrating bombs that have hit Iraq recently.
Pentagon and intelligence officials say that some shipments of the new explosives have contained both components and fully manufactured devices, and may have been spirited into Iraq along the porous Iranian border by the Iranian-backed, anti-Israeli terrorist group Hezbollah, or by Iran's Revolutionary Guard. American commanders say these bombs closely matched those that Hezbollah has used against Israel.
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There a strong whiff of Pentagon bullshit off this story and it's not just beating the drum for war with Iran; DC needs excuses for its incomptetence at the moment.

The story is hedged with doubts by the NYT.
"Iran's protégés are in control in Iraq right now, yet these weapons are going to people fighting Iran's protégés," said Kenneth Katzman, a Persian Gulf expert at the Congressional Research Service and a former Middle East analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. "That makes little sense to me."
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It makes no sense from the point of view of Tehran; the new Shiite dominated Iraq is a dream come true for the Mullahs. But it's far from impossible that an Iraqi bomb making operation has offshored component manufacturing to Iran.

Sane comments from RM Maj. Gen. J.B. Dutton
"The question of Iranian involvement is always a difficult one because there's a lot of speculation about it and not many facts," Dutton said in a teleconference interview from his Basra headquarters in southern Iraq.

"There have clearly been relatively close relationships between the two countries over many years. The Maisan Province in particular, but also Basra province, border Iran," Dutton noted.
...
"One of the problems that we have - and that the Iraqis and, indeed, Iranians have - is that there is only one legal border crossing between Iraq and Iran between the Gulf and Baghdad. There is on the Maisan-Iran border no border crossing at all," the general said.

"And there are perfectly legitimate reasons for Iraqis to want to cross into Iran and Iranians to want to cross into Iraq. And, of course, it's difficult for people to do it if their nearest border crossing is 200 or 300 kilometers away."

Dutton said that a second crossing would help Iraq establish tighter control over the border.
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Police fire on protesters in Shi'ite Iraqi town
Hundreds of Iraqis angry at poor public services rioted in the town of Samawa south of Baghdad on Sunday and police opened fire on the crowd, killing one person and wounding 40, hospital sources and witnesses said. Residents of the normally calm, mainly Shi'ite town burned vehicles, including a police car, just outside the governor's office and demanded his resignation, the witnesses said. Police in riot gear held up plastic shields as protesters hurled rocks. Armed police stood on the roof of the governorate.

Iraq's Shi'ite-led government took power in January polls promising to end guerrilla violence and restore public services. But frustrations are running high in southern towns like Samawa, largely free of guerrilla violence but suffering from power and water shortages more than two years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein. The Shi'ite south was ill-favoured under Saddam's Sunni-dominated rule and hopes were high after his overthrow by invading U.S. forces, and then the election of a Shi'ite-led government, that life would improve.

Daily life, however, remains hard for most and the Sunni insurgency further north continues to damage Iraq's economy. Although majority Shi'ites are enjoying power for the first time, top Shi'ite groups are battling each other for power as the country moves towards national elections in December and rivalries have spread to their supporters in towns like Samawa.

..........

The protests over poor water, electricity and sewage were called by the local council, which is dominated by Samawa's town elders, not Shi'ite parties. That suggests grassroots anger over what some say is widespread neglect by the new government. Samawa residents made their economic desperation clear last month by taking to the streets and demanding jobs in the police force, a high-risk profession in a country where hundreds of policemen have been killed by suicide bombers or gunmen. About 550 Japanese troops engaged in civil engineering projects are based in Samawa. They are protected by nearby Australian combat troops since the Japanese government has promised voters that the controversial deployment will not involve combat.
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Insurgents attack police as unrest grips Iraq town
SAMAWA, Iraq, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at Iraqi security forces in the southern town of Samawa on Monday, a day after violent protests erupted over poor government services, witnesses said.

The violence is worrying for the government because Samawa is a usually calm Shi'ite town in a region relatively free of the bloodshed gripping other parts of Iraq. Anger over a lack of jobs and problems with the power and water supply have sparked anger in many parts of Iraq.

On Sunday, police opened fire on a crowd of protesters gathered outside the governor's office, killing one person and wounding about 40, police and hospital sources said. Mohammed al-Ghazawi, a representative of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, told Reuters protests would continue until the local governor resigned and public services in Samawa improved. Sadr's Mehdi Army militia rose up against U.S. and British forces last year.
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Choking Iraqis fill hospitals in crippling sandstorm
Baghdad was choking on Monday in one of its worst sandstorms in memory, which packed hospital emergency wards with people rasping for breath and cleared roads of traffic. A key meeting to discuss Iraq's draft constitution with President Jalal Talabani was put back by a day because of the weather. Meteorologists said a rare air pressure system over Iraq's western desert was dumping sand and dust on the city. It was yet another trial for ordinary Iraqis in the capital, who suffer the threat of daily attacks by insurgents, nervous U.S. troops who shoot to kill if threatened, and electricity and water shortages during the searing summer heat.

Hospitals were overflowing with people, many of them elderly, suffering breathing difficulties; their families and medical staff complained about a lack of services and supplies. The Yarmuk hospital said more than 800 patients arrived during the morning alone.

"There are so many ill people coming in, but we just don't have the staff for this. I have a lack of oxygen to supply people, a lack of people to serve them," said Qusay Hasnawy, the main doctor dealing with out-patients at Yarmuk. One woman was frantically fanning her teenage daughter while she waited to receive oxygen and an injection.

"This is only a hospital in name. There are no services here for treating people," she railed.
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Terrorism 'radiating' from Iraq
We fear developments in Iraq are radiating outwards," foreign intelligence chief August Hanning said in brief comments to Reuters.

He said it was possible that an intensification of insurgent attacks on Iraqi security forces and the U.S.-led coalition was encouraging like-minded militants to step up attacks in the wider region as well.

Hanning cited bombings that killed 64 people last month in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, and security alerts in recent days forcing cruise liners carrying Israeli tourists to divert from Turkey to Cyprus.
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Dale Davis says Ayatollahs are lovely
In this struggle against Al Qaeda, the Shi’a are our natural allies. We need to set aside old arguments and engage the Shi’a in a more proactive and positive way. of the West nor the re-establishment of an Islamic caliphate. It acts in its national interests and not for theological/ideological reasons.
...
In the end, Shi’a dominated governments in Iran[ ]and Iraq[ ]will serve as a better bulwark against the expansion of radical pan-Islamic wackiness in the region than a whole division of Marines.
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