*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

News from Basra

The south of the country has slipped from the public gaze; the casual observer might be forgiven for thinking that peace has descended on Basra and the surrounding countryside.

But in the last week there have been disturbing reminders that the situation in the south remains as fragile as it has ever been.

The British are not being picked off with quite the metronomic regularity of their coalition allies further north but in the last week a British soldier has lost a leg and the commanding officer of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Lieutenant-Colonel Jonny Gray, survived a rocket attack when the grenade hit the front tyre of his vehicle and bounced off, exploding a little way away.

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=431552004

 

[Barking_Mad]

Ahhh cant beat some free political speech can you?

Iraqi 'beaten to death' by US troops

April 14, 2004
AN Iraqi has died of his wounds after US troops beat him with truncheons because he refused to remove a picture of wanted Shiite Muslim leader Moqtada Sadr from his car, police said today.

The motorist was stopped late yesterday by US troops conducting search operations on a street in the centre of the central city of Kut, Lieutenant Mohamad Abdel Abbas said.

After the man refused to remove Sadr's picture from his car, the soldiers forced him out of the vehicle and started beating him with truncheons, he said.

US troops also detained from the same area five men wearing black pants and shirts, the usual attire of Sadr's Mehdi Army militiamen and followers.

Qassem Hassan, the director of Kut general hospital, identified the man as Salem Hassan, a resident of a Kut suburb.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,9282015%5E1702,00.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Dead in Fallujah

Half Iraqis killed in Fallujah are civilians

Mediator says 160 women, 141 children, many elderly killed in US offensive in flashpoint town of Fallujah.


BAGHDAD - Half the Iraqis killed in a US offensive in the town of Fallujah were women, children and elderly people, a mediator said Tuesday, but US officials insisted they take all precautions to avoid non-combattants.

Fouda Rawi, senior member of the Iraqi Islamic Party spearheading efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in the city west of Baghdad, quoted hospital sources as saying more than 600 Iraqis had been killed and 1,250 wounded.

"Among those killed were 160 women, 141 children and many elderly," he said, providing the first precise figures on the number of civilian deaths from the nearly week-long offensive.

But US officials said it was impossible to determine how many civilians had died in the drive by US marines in the Sunni Muslim bastion before a ceasefire took hold over the weekend.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=9624

 

[Barking_Mad]

Fucking wanky CNN, worth the read.

Acting as the substitute anchor on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports, Kagan began the interview by asking Al-Sheik to respond to those accusations, citing U.S. officials "saying the pictures and the reporting that Al Jazeera put on the air only adds to the sense of frustration and anger and adds to the problems in Iraq, rather than helping to solve them." After Al-Sheik defended Al Jazeera's work as "accurate" and the images as representative of "what takes place on the ground," Kagan pressed on:

"Isn't the story, though, bigger than just the simple numbers, with all due respect to the Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives-- the story bigger than just the numbers of people who were killed or the fact that they might have been killed by the U.S. military, that the insurgents, the people trying to cause problems within Fallujah, are mixing in among the civilians, making it actually possibly that even more civilians would be killed, that the story is what the Iraqi insurgents are doing, in addition to what is the response from the U.S. military?"

CNN's argument that a bigger story than civilian deaths is "what the Iraqi insurgents are doing" to provoke a U.S. "response" is startling. Especially in light of official U.S. denials of civilian deaths, video footage of women and children killed by the U.S. military is evidence that needs to be seen.

http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0415-09.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

U.S. secures main routes to Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military command Saturday closed down long stretches of two strategic highways leading to Baghdad, as American troops labored against insurgent attacks that have severely reduced the flow of food, fuel and other supplies into the capital.

The closings appeared to confirm the effect of two weeks of heightened violence in Iraq. American soldiers, stretched thin, already have been deployed in large numbers to contain serious and unresolved uprisings in the cities of Fallujah and Najaf. Now they have been sent to face the growing problem of keeping crucial sections of highway open for the passage of critically needed convoys reaching the Iraqi heartland from Turkey, Jordan and Kuwait.......

.........The general said American military supplies were less of a problem because there were "alternative methods" of delivering ammunition, food and fuel, presumably by air.

But even at the bases, commanders have been rationing use of critical stockpiles and urging decisive action to ensure that road convoys get through. But a senior American official said Saturday that the cutoff in supplies reaching the American occupation authority's headquarters in Saddam Hussein's former Republican Palace in central Baghdad were approaching a critical point.

Canteens feeding 2,000 people, civilians as well as military personnel, may soon be forced to serve combat rations in plastic sleeves, known as meals ready to eat..........One report circulating in the Baghdad hotel where the company is headquartered here was that 80 convoys running into Iraq had been ambushed in the last two weeks. Kimmitt, asked to confirm the figure at a briefing Saturday, said he had no figures.



http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/8460266.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Calm before the storm in Baghdad

A 100-mile drive south from Baghdad to Najaf last week revealed many of the coalition's problems. At one point, piles of scorched and twisted metal on the roadside marked where an American convoy was destroyed 10 days earlier. Officers from the new Iraqi police force sat disconsolately at makeshift checkpoints or cowered behind concrete blast walls. A single American patrol inched along a lane closed to other traffic, soldiers crouched in their armoured vehicles, their weapons trained on the traffic, on the countryside, on houses.........

.........In Najaf, the young men manning the defences were jumpy, aware that the Americans have pledged to 'capture or kill' their leader, the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. They were unloading RPG launchers and reinforcing a series of makeshift bunkers on Thursday. A day later, clashes with US troops outside the city killed five civilians. Yesterday there was more violence.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1194232,00.html

 

[laptop]

Spain PM orders Iraq troops home

Spain's new prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has given orders for Spanish troops in Iraq to be brought home in "as short a time as possible".

...

Immediately after his election, Mr Zapatero had vowed to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq unless they came under UN command by 30 June when their mandate expires.

...

"With the information we have, and which we have gathered over the past few weeks, it is not foreseeable that the United Nations will adopt a resolution" that satisfies Spain's terms, Mr Zapatero said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US attack on Iraqi city fought off

Saturday 17 April 2004, 17:16 Makka Time, 14:16 GMT

US occupation forces have tried to storm the northern Iraqi city of al-Qaim, but have been repelled by resistance fighters, Aljazeera's correspondent reports. The clash occurred after a mortar attack on a US military base in the Jamarik area in the city near the border with Syria on Saturday.

Witnesses told Aljazeera several US soldiers had been injured in the attack. "US helicopters were seen transferring the injured to hospital," the witnesses added. Columns of smoke were seen rising from the base. The city is totally paralysed, reported the correspondent. Only armed resistance fighters are seen in the streets, he added.

US apache helicopters were seen flying over the city. A medical source told Aljazeera at least two children had been injured by random gunfire.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3C4312DA-9ADD-4D4D-A972-68153FBCA56E.htm

 

[Leo JP]

11 US Soldiers have died since Saturday, making the death toll 700.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/18/iraq.main/index.html

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

Another first hand account of what's going on in Falluja from Jo Wilding:

http://www.wildfirejo.blogspot.com/

April 17th
Falluja (2)

Sergeant Tratner of the First Armoured Division is irritated. “Git back or you’ll git killed,” are his opening words.

Lee says we’re press and he looks with disdain at the car. “In this piece of shit?”

Makes us less of a target for kidnappers, Lee tells him. Suddenly he decides he recognises Lee from the TV. Based in Germany, he watches the BBC. He sees Lee on TV all the time. “Cool. Hey, can I have your autograph?”

Lee makes a scribble, unsure who he’s meant to be but happy to have a ticket through the checkpoint which all the cars before us have been turned back from, and Sergeant Tratner carries on. “You guys be careful in Falluja. We’re killing loads of those folks.” Detecting a lack of admiration on our part, he adds, “Well, they’re killing us too. I like Falluja. I killed a bunch of them mother fuckers.”

I wish Sergeant Tratner were a caricature, a stereotype, but these are all direct quotations. We fiddle with our hijabs in the roasting heat. “You don’t have to wear those things any more,” he says. “You’re liberated now.” He laughs. I mention that more and more women are wearing hijabs nowadays because of increasing attacks on them.

A convoy of aid vehicles flying Red Crescent flags approaches the checkpoint, hesitates. “We don’t like to encourage them,” Sergeant Tratner explains, his tongue loosened by the excitement of finding someone to talk to. “Jeez it’s good to meet someone that speaks English. Well, apart from ‘Mister’ and ‘please’ and ‘why’.”

“Haven’t you got translators?” someone asks him.

Sergeant Tratner points his rifle in the direction of the lead vehicle in the convoy. “I got the best translator in the world,” he says...

More accounts of war crimes committed by US forces, plus a day spent as 'guests' of local 'Mujahedin' forces.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Baghdad trade traffic comes to a halt

Monday 19 April 2004, 19:19 Makka Time, 16:19 GMT

Attacks on occupation forces reduces highway trafficIraq's commercial transport network has practically come to a halt because of a deterioration in security and the closure of main roads by US forces, shippers and merchants said on Monday. They said trade and economic activity had slowed down sharply.

Iraq became more dependent on imports after postwar looting and 13 years of a crippling economic embargo all but wiped out its industrial base. "Baghdad has been effectively isolated," said Muzahim al-Azzawi, executive manager of Jazairi Transport. He said truck movement had mostly stopped on the western roads to Jordan and Syria, and that a bridge on the only road left open to Baghdad from the south was now too weak to cross because of war damage and recent sabotage.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9BCC3D3F-C8FA-4C92-ADA3-50A295188E18.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq jail attack kills 21 inmates

A mortar attack on an Iraqi detention centre near Baghdad has left 21 inmates dead, the US military says.
All the casualties in the attack on the Baghdad Confinement Facility in Abu Ghraib were prisoners of the US-led coalition, Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt said. Gen Kimmitt told a news conference that the centre was hit by 18 mortars.

He said he did not know whether the prisoners were suspected criminals or whether they were held on suspicion of taking part in anti-coalition attacks. Gen Kimmitt said more than 100 people were wounded in the attack.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3643151.stm

Fables of Reconstruction

As the situation in Iraq grows ever more tenuous, the Bush administration continues to spin the ominous news with matter-of-fact optimism. According to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Iraqi uprisings in half a dozen cities, accompanied by the deaths of more than 100 soldiers in the month of April alone, is something to be viewed in the context of "good days and bad days," merely "a moment in Iraq's path towards a free and democratic system." More recently, the president himself asserted, "Our coalition is standing with responsible Iraqi leaders as they establish growing authority in their country."

But according to a closely held Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) memo written in early March, the reality isn't so rosy. Iraq's chances of seeing democracy succeed, according to the memo's author-a U.S. government official detailed to the CPA, who wrote this summation of observations he'd made in the field for a senior CPA director-have been severely imperiled by a year's worth of serious errors on the part of the Pentagon and the CPA, the U.S.-led multinational agency administering Iraq. Far from facilitating democracy and security, the memo's author fears, U.S. efforts have created an environment rife with corruption and sectarianism likely to result in civil war.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0416/vest.php

 

[Barking_Mad]

U.S. soldier dies after attack on convoy in Iraq

MOSUL, Iraq, April 20 (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier died from wounds sustained in a bomb attack on his convoy in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, the U.S. military said.

A military spokesman in Mosul said the soldier died after being transferred to a military hospital in Baghdad. Four other soldiers were injured in the attack.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/OB052762.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Car Bombings Kill at Least 58 in Southern Iraq

Wed Apr 21, 2004 03:36 AM ET

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - At least 58 people were killed, many of them children, in co-ordinated car bombings of four security posts that brought bloody chaos to Iraq's southern city of Basra on Wednesday, witnesses said. Near-simultaneous explosions hit three police stations in Basra and a blast at around the same time struck a joint Iraqi-British post in the town of Zubair, 16 miles to the south of the mainly Shi'ite city, the British military said.

Reuters counted 55 bodies at one hospital. Among the dead were many children who had been going to school in a minibus caught in one blast. Some 200 civilians and police were killed or wounded. A morgue attendant said 39 bodies had been identified while at least 16 other bodies were burned beyond recognition.

A wounded Iraqi, Amin Dinar, said he had heard a huge explosion as he stood at the door of his house. "I looked around and saw my leg bleeding and my neighbor lying dead on the floor, torn apart," he said from his hospital bed. "I saw a minibus full of children on fire -- 15 of the 18 passengers were killed and three badly wounded."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4889260&section=news

 

[Barking_Mad]

Deteriorating security in Iraq

From Professor Sir Timothy Garden and others

Sir, We watch the deteriorating security situation in Iraq with deep sadness.
The coalition forces should have only one purpose: to promote the rule of law in a chaotic post-conflict environment. The military must not themselves be above the law; we learnt that lesson in our own prolonged counter-insurgency operation in Northern Ireland. British soldiers are not naturally more restrained than their American cousins. Hard training and discipline have instilled into them the importance of working within the constraints of normal civilian law when trying to build trust with the community.

If we seek to bring democracy to Iraq, the rule of law should come first; and coalition forces must be just as subject to it as are the ordinary citizens. This means that often a direct military response will be disallowed in favour of a more peaceable solution of a police nature.

This is always a hard lesson for the military to learn. The Northern Ireland peace process would not have been helped by the use of attack helicopters against IRA strongholds. Israel degrades its security with each use of excessive force in Gaza. Likewise, bombing mosques or strafing houses makes any settlement in Iraq more difficult to achieve.

We strongly believe that all forces in Iraq should be required forthwith to act within the confines of normal civil legal rules. After power is transferred on June 30, any agreement on the status of foreign forces with the new transitional government must require that the military operate within the law.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,59-1079589,00.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Update.......

04/20/04 Reuters: Blasts blasts kill at least 40
At least 40 people have been killed and scores wounded in car bombings that hit three police stations in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, a Reuters witness says.

04/20/04 AP: Iraq Insurgents Hit Marines in Fallujah
About 35 Iraqi insurgents attacked U.S. Marines in northern Fallujah just after daybreak Wednesday, setting off a heavy gunbattle, the military said. There was no immediate word on casualties.

04/20/04 BBC: Attacks blast Basra and Falluja
Three explosions have hit police stations in Iraq's second city of Basra with many dead and injured including pre-school children.

04/20/04 ABC: US marines kill eight in Fallujah
US marines have killed eight insurgents in the latest clash in the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Fallujah, despite a cease-fire designed to end a violent stand-off in the town, a US officer said.

04/20/04 Centcom: 1 Soldier Killed, 4 Wounded in Mosul (Confirmed)
One Task Force Olympia Soldier died and four were wounded when their convoy was attacked with an improvised explosive device west of Mosul just after 9 a.m. April 20.

04/20/04 AFP: Canadian abducted in Iraq
A SECOND Canadian has been abducted in Iraq, the Canadian Foreign Ministry said today, as a first, freed, hostage was expected home.

http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx

 

[Barking_Mad]

Here's something worth a look. Its the 1st Infintry Guide to Iraq, Iraqis and how to make IED's. Worth a read!

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2003/1id_iraq_soldier-handbook.pdf

 

[Barking_Mad]

Kidnapped Dane found dead in Iraq

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A Danish businessman kidnapped in Iraq has been found dead, says the Danish Foreign Ministry. "There is as yet no information about the perpetrators or a motive for the killing," it added in a statement. On April 16, the ministry confirmed a Danish citizen was missing in Iraq. It did not name him.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040421/325/ermh5.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

ho ho ho.

US senator talks conscription for Iraq

Wednesday 21 April 2004, 10:26 Makka Time, 7:26 GMT

The US is now forced to make up departing 'coalition' numbers. A senior US lawmaker has said deteriorating security in Iraq may force the reintroduction of the military draft. Senator Chuck Hagel told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday all US citizens knew exactly what was at stake in the occupied country.

"Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel said, even if that price meant death. The senator also argued that restoring compulsory military service would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face".

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B9CDF0AB-FC48-4E10-B33D-2E2009D3DF04.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

CPA reverse decision to sack Ba'ath party members.

Former generals of Saddams regime reinstated to new US-trained army

By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
23 April 2004

Iraqi generals who fought for Saddam Hussein are being reinstated to strengthen the new US-trained Iraqi army half of whose soldiers mutinied or went home during fighting earlier this month.

More than half a dozen generals from the old Iraqi army, dissolved by the US-led Coalition last May, have already been given jobs say American officials according to the US press. Former members of the Baath party will also be employed in the government. The abrupt reversal of previous policy comes as a senior US general admitted that 10 per cent of the Iraqi security services actually changed sides during recent fighting and another 40 per cent went home.

It was known that one Iraqi battalion had refused to fight against fellow Iraqis in Fallujah and police and paramilitary units walked off the job earlier in April. But Maj Gen Mark Dempsey, the commander of the 1st Armoured Division based in Baghdad, said that the disintegration of the security services went much further than previously admitted.

Gen Dempsey said: About 40 per cent walked off the job because they were intimidated. And about 10 per cent actually worked against us. He added that the mutineers were infiltrators. The setback for the US is very significant because over the last nine months building up Iraqi security forces to replace US troops has been a central and much-publicised plank in US policy in Iraq.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=514327

 

[Barking_Mad]

Dont miss this piece, well worth the read.

"They shouldn't surprise anyone except those blinded by the Pollyanna-ish predictions of Iraqi exiles exhorting America to invade," says the Oregon Democrat, who voted against authorizing U.S. troops in Iraq. "What is a surprise is how consistently the administration downplays these problems in its public statements even as conditions grow more severe and more American lives are lost."

The memo, written in March, was provided to this reporter by a Western intelligence official, with sections deleted to protect the author's identity and "avoid inflaming an already volatile situation" by revealing the names of certain Iraqi figures.

The wide-ranging, acerbic critique of the occupation is especially significant because, according to the intelligence official, the author is a steadfast advocate of "regime change" in Iraq.

Signs of the author's continuing support for the U.S. invasion and occupation are all over the memo, which was written to a superior in Baghdad and circulated among other occupation officials......

.......The author also asserts that "what we have accomplished in Iraq is worth it." His outlook on certain scenarios, recorded just a few weeks ago, is improbably sunny. He writes that the arrest of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr would cause "two or three days" of violence. Given that coalition forces' attempt to stop al Sadr and his militia have resulted in weeks of bloody conflict, the prediction seems Pollyanna-ish at best..........

..............Yet the memo is gloomy in most other respects. It says Iraq is mired in dysfunction and corruption. It says the occupational government "handle an issue like six-year-olds play soccer: Someone kicks the ball and one hundred people chase after it hoping to be noticed, without a care as to what happens on the field."

Most disturbingly for U.S. troops, policy makers and citizens, the memo asserts that this approach has sown the seeds for civil war across the country. It goes on to argue that "the trigger for a civil war" is not likely to be an isolated incident ...

http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=5025

 

[Barking_Mad]

That'll be the gauntlet thrown down I think........

Sunni leader warns of nationwide uprising if Fallujah is hit

"I have an urgent message for US forces. You have overstepped the red line. Make sure you do not strike Fallujah again," Sheikh Ahmad Abdel Ghafur Samarrai said during Friday prayers at a Baghdad mosque.

"We will not allow the shedding of Iraqi blood. If you strike again, the whole of Iraq, from north to south, from east to west, will become Fallujah," the Sunni cleric said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...afp/iraq_us_fallujah_sunni&cid=1514&ncid=1480

 

[Barking_Mad]

Who is running Iraq?

Al-Sadr also urged Najaf residents to create committees to run their city. "It is up to you to build your Islamic capital," he said. "We should be united for one ultimate goal, to liberate our country and remove the filth from Iraq." The congregation chanted "Long live Sadr" and denounced not only the occupation forces but the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, saying "America and the Council are infidels". Occupation forces are attempting to capture al-Sadr allegedly in connection with the assassination of a rival Shia cleric.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20040423_90.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

BBC pulls more staff from Baghdad...Im sure the US and UK are more than happy. What a joke........

BBC cuts back Iraq staff

Iraq: BBC will be left with just two reporters in Baghdad

The BBC has dramatically scaled back its staff in Iraq and banned programme-makers from organising any new trips there amid the deteriorating security situation.
Just two reporters, David Willis and Dominic Hughes, and a small team of technical staff remain in the corporation's Baghdad bureau after Caroline Hawley and Barbara Plett left the country.

The cutbacks mean the BBC's TV channels and radio stations will be severely restricted in their coverage of the crisis in Iraq, with the flagship 10pm news missing out on live coverage altogether.

The BBC will also have to rely on news agencies and local reporters and cameramen for anything outside Baghdad.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1201990,00.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

BBC eventually gets round to covering the story.........

Inside Fallujah

There was little media access during the fighting, but eyewitness reports are now emerging. Humanitarian workers speak of US gunmen firing at ambulances and civilians. They say makeshift clinics were overwhelmed because of a bridge closure which cut off access to the main hospital....

....Ambulance accusations:
The head of mission of a European humanitarian agency with staff in Falluja told BBC News Online that, according to his staff, two of their ambulances had been shot at.

"By who? The probability is by US snipers," he said.

Asked whether these were warning or attacking shots, he said: "One was shot two or three times - a sniper does not shoot an ambulance three times by mistake."

British aid worker Jo Wilding said an ambulance she was in, with flashing lights, siren blaring and "ambulance" written on it in English, was hit as it drove to collect a woman in premature labour.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3653223.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Dad, what's a terrorist?

Seen it done before, but worth the quick read for some 'amusement'.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/22/1082616260498.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Blasts Heard Near Baghdad Airport

23 April 2004, Friday.

Several explosions were heard around Baghdad airport, Al-Arabia television network reported. It was not immediately known what caused the blasts. No casualties have been reported so far

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=33778

 

[Barking_Mad]

A good read:

White House Says Iraq Sovereignty Could Be Limited

WASHINGTON, April 22 - The Bush administration's plans for a new caretaker government in Iraq would place severe limits on its sovereignty, including only partial command over its armed forces and no authority to enact new laws, administration officials said Thursday.

These restrictions to the plan negotiated with Lakhdar Brahimi, the special United Nations envoy, were presented in detail for the first time by top administration officials at Congressional hearings this week, culminating in long and intense questioning on Thursday at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's hearing on the goal of returning Iraq to self-rule on June 30.

http://truthout.org/docs_04/042404A.shtml

 

[Barking_Mad]

This piece on UK involvement is worth the read. Much better than most of the shte from the 'mainstream' papers. A small tank? Hmmmm!

Since February last year a total of 2,228 injured British personnel have been flown home for treatment, a figure equivalent to three battalions. To put the figure in context, the entire Black Watch battle group in Iraq during the war amounted to 1,100 soldiers. About 60,000 British military personnel have served in Iraq during Operation Telic, with the death toll currently standing at 59.

Coalition commanders decided that British troops may have to be used to restore order in Nasiriyah after it became clear that the Italian and South Korean forces were losing control. In one incident, about 80 militia armed with a small tank succeeded in hijacking a train.

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=461122004

 

[Barking_Mad]

UK Minister Admits Errors Over Weapons Expert Kelly

April 23 — LONDON (Reuters) - British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon admitted on Saturday his staff mishandled the treatment of an Iraq weapons expert whose suicide rocked Prime Minister Tony Blair's government.

Hoon said the Defense Ministry had been wrong not to tell government scientist Dr David Kelly sooner that his name would be made public during a row over the government's case for war in Iraq.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20040423_555.html