1 600 gefallene US-Soldaten im Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three U.S. Marines were killed in action in Anbar province in western Iraq on Monday, the U.S. military said in a statement on Wednesday.

Anbar is the heartland of the Sunni insurgency against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government and U.S. forces. It is the deadliest area in Iraq for U.S. soldiers.

The deaths of the three soldiers brought to at least 37 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the start of October.

The U.S. military said on Tuesday it killed seven insurgents in an air strike on a building in Ramadi, capital of Anbar, after U.S. troops came under "extremely heavy fire".

Three U.S. soldiers were killed in Anbar on Sunday.

 

NEW YORK (AP) -- A controversial new study contends nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, suggesting a far higher death toll than other estimates.

The timing of the survey's release, just a few weeks before the U.S. congressional elections, led one expert to call it "politics."

In the new study, researchers attempt to calculate how many more Iraqis have died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. Their conclusion, based on interviews of households and not a body count, is that about 600,000 died from violence, mostly gunfire. They also found a small increase in deaths from other causes like heart disease and cancer.

"Deaths are occurring in Iraq now at a rate more than three times that from before the invasion of March 2003," Dr. Gilbert Burnham, lead author of the study, said in a statement.

The study by Burnham, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and others is to be published on the Web site of The Lancet, a medical journal.

An accurate count of Iraqi deaths has been difficult to obtain, but one respected group puts its rough estimate at closer to 50,000. And at least one expert was skeptical of the new findings.

"They're almost certainly way too high," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He criticized the way the estimate was derived and noted that the results were released shortly before the Nov. 7 elections in the United States.

"This is not analysis, this is politics," Cordesman said.

The work updates an earlier Johns Hopkins study -- that one was released just before the November 2004 presidential election. At the time, the lead researcher, Les Roberts of Hopkins, said the timing was deliberate. Many of the same researchers were involved in the latest estimate.

Speaking of the new study, Burnham said the estimate was much higher than others because it was derived from a house-to-house survey rather than approaches that depend on body counts or media reports.

A private group called Iraqi Body Count, for example, says it has recorded about 44,000 to 49,000 civilian Iraqi deaths. But it notes that those totals are based on media reports, which it says probably overlook "many if not most civilian casualties."

For Burnham's study, researchers gathered data from a sample of 1,849 Iraqi households with a total of 12,801 residents from late May to early July. That sample was used to extrapolate the total figure. The estimate deals with deaths up to July.

The survey participants attributed about 31 percent of violent deaths to coalition forces.

Accurate death tolls have been difficult to obtain ever since the Iraq conflict began in March 2003. When top Iraqi political officials cite death numbers, they often refuse to cite the source of the numbers.

The Health Ministry, which tallies civilian deaths, relies on reports from government hospitals and morgues. The Interior Ministry compiles its figures from police stations, while the Defense Ministry reports deaths only among army soldiers and insurgents killed in combat.

The United Nations keeps its own count, based largely on reports from the Baghdad morgue and the Health Ministry.

The major funder of the new study was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi security forces have found 110 bodies dumped across the capital in the past two days, all killed in a manner authorities attribute to Sunni-Shiite sectarian strife.

Baghdad police said 60 bullet-riddled bodies were found around Baghdad between Monday morning and Tuesday morning, and another 50 were found later in the day Tuesday.

Some of the bodies showed signs of torture and had their hands and feet bound. The bodies could not be immediately identified. (Watch how violent the first part of October has been for Iraq -- 1:01 )

Elsewhere in Iraq, 15 people were killed in attacks in or near Baghdad, and 11 insurgents were slain by coalition and Iraqi troops in the southern city of Diwaniya.

A string of deadly attacks
Ten civilians were killed on Tuesday when a bomb was detonated under a car in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, emergency police said.

The blast -- which occurred at 1 p.m. -- wounded four other people.

The bombing was near the Hatem Al-Sa'adoun Mosque. Police said the apparent target was a bakery.

In another incident in the same neighborhood, a roadside bomb targeting a U.S.-Iraqi patrol killed a policeman and wounded four others.

In the mainly Sunni Seleikh neighborhood of northern Baghdad, a suicide car bomber slammed into an Iraqi army checkpoint, killing two Iraqi soldiers and wounding seven, police said.

And in Rashid, a town about 16 miles (25 kilometers) south of the capital, a roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi police patrol, killing two officers and wounding three others, police said.

Farther south in the Shiite-dominated city of Diwaniya, coalition and Iraqi forces clashed with insurgents near the Al Qaim Mosque on Monday evening, leaving 11 insurgents dead, a U.S. military statement said.

The gun battle occurred when a joint coalition and Iraqi unit on routine patrol came under fire while speaking with police at a checkpoint near the mosque.

The enemy fighters, which the military labeled as terrorists, were dressed as Iraqi police officers, and a pickup truck with Iraqi police markings was heavily damaged, the military said.

Diwaniya -- located in the southern province of Qadisiya -- has a dominant Shiite presence, and it has been the scene of recent hostilities between coalition forces and the Mehdi Army militia loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

On Saturday night, a raid by the U.S. military left 30 insurgents from the Mehdi Army militia dead; in late August, a pitched battle between his fighters and government troops left more than 60 people dead.

Hussein ejected
Saddam Hussein was ejected again in a rowdy session of his trial in Baghdad for alleged crimes during the 1988 Anfal campaign in the Kurdish region. He was removed from the court after getting into a heated argument with chief judge Mohammad Orabi Majeed al-Khalefa.

The confrontation began after Hussein protested al-Khalefa's refusal to let two other defendants cross-examine a witness. After arguing with the judge, Hussein was ordered out of the courtroom. (Full story)

Other developments

Four more U.S. troops have died in Iraq, according to U.S. military statements issued Tuesday. Three U.S. Marines were killed Monday in fighting in Anbar province. And a U.S. soldier died after a bombing while on patrol north of Tikrit on Sunday. Since the start of the war, the U.S. military has suffered 2,742 fatalities in Iraq. Seven American civilian contractors of the military also have died in the conflict.


A fire at an ammunition depot late Tuesday sparked a series of powerful explosions and a massive fire at a small U.S. base in southern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The blasts, some of which shook buildings at least four miles away, continued for more than an hour. The cause of the fire at Forward Operating Base Falcon was not yet known, officials said. No casualties were immediately reported, according to Iraqi police and the U.S. military. (Watch the blasts light up Baghdad -- 3:36  )


An Iraqi international soccer referee was released unharmed Tuesday morning after being kidnapped over the weekend, an official with the Iraqi Olympic Committee said. No ransom was paid. Gunmen abducted Hazim Hussein on Sunday as he left the Iraqi Federation of Football office in northwestern Baghdad, the official said.  

650.000 Tote im Irak: Pentagon widerspricht Studie

Das US-Verteidigungsministerium hat Berichte zurückgewiesen, wonach im Irak rund 650 000 Menschen an den Folgen des Krieges gestorben sein sollen.

Es seien keinesfalls mehr als 50.000 Tote, sagte der Kommandant der multinationalen Streitkräfte im Irak, General George Casey, gestern (Ortszeit) in Washington. US-Präsident George W. Bush hatte im Dezember vergangenen Jahres die Zahl der getöteten Iraker noch mit 30.000 angegeben.

Zuvor war in der britischen Medizin-Fachzeitschrift "The Lancet" online eine Studie amerikanischer und irakischer Ärzte veröffentlicht worden, wonach durch die Folgen des Krieges von 2003 fast 655.000 Menschen ums Leben gekommen sind.

Mehr dazu in science.ORF.at

Bush glaubt Zahlen nicht
Auch Bush wies die Studie als "nicht glaubwürdig" zurück. "Ich glaube nicht, dass es sich um einen glaubwürdigen Bericht handelt", sagte Bush bei einer Pressekonferenz.

UNO: Gewalt außer Kontrolle
Laut UNO ist die Gewalt im Irak völlig außer Kontrolle geraten. Rund 100 Menschen würden jeden Tag getötet, mindestens 1.000 täglich aus ihren Häusern vertrieben. "Das bedeutet, dass im vergangenen Monat mehr als 3.000 Menschen Opfer brutaler und nackter Gewalt wurden", so der UNO-Sonderbeauftragte Jan Egeland.
zurück
 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- For planning purposes, the Army is gearing up to keep current troop levels in Iraq for another four years, a new indication that conditions there are too unstable to foresee an end to the war.

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, cautioned against reading too much into the planning, which is done far in advance to prepare the right mix of combat units for expected deployments. He noted that it is easier to scale back later if conditions allow, than to ramp up if they don't.

"This is not a prediction that things are going poorly or better," Schoomaker told reporters. "It's just that I have to have enough ammo in the magazine that I can continue to shoot as long as they want us to shoot."

Even so, his comments were the latest acknowledgment by Pentagon officials that a significant withdrawal of troops from Iraq is not likely in the immediate future. There are now 141,000 U.S. troops there.
 
At a Pentagon news conference, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, said that as recently as July he had expected to be able to recommend a substantial reduction in U.S. forces by now. But that plan was dropped as sectarian violence in Baghdad escalated.

While arguing that progress is still being made toward unifying Iraq's fractured political rivalries and stabilizing the country, Casey also said the violence amounts to "a difficult situation that's likely to remain that way for some time."

He made no predictions of future U.S. troop reductions.

Appearing with Casey, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he and other senior Pentagon officials are still studying how the military might keep up the current pace of Iraq deployments without overtaxing the Army and Marine Corps, which have borne the brunt of the conflict. Rumsfeld said one option is to make more use of the Air Force and Navy for work that normally is done by soldiers and Marines.

   
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday that the advance planning Schoomaker described was an appropriate cautionary approach. However, he added, the Pentagon should increase the overall size of the military to reduce stress on troops repeatedly sent into combat.

"I applaud the new realism but I think they also have to recognize that this (war) is going to put a huge stress on our forces," said Reed, a former Army Ranger. Reed and other Democrats have called on President Bush to start bringing home troops within a year to force the Iraqi government to take more responsibility for security.

At his news conference, Rumsfeld was asked whether he bears responsibility for what has gone wrong in Iraq or if the military commanders there are to blame.

"Of course I bear responsibility," he replied in apparent exasperation. "My Lord, I'm secretary of defense. Write it down."

In recent months the Army has shown signs of strain, as Pentagon officials have had to extend the Iraq deployments of two brigades to bolster security in Baghdad and allow units heading into the country to have at least one year at home before redeploying.

The Army is finding that the amount of time soldiers enjoy between Iraq tours has been shrinking this year. In the case of a brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, its deployment to Iraq was delayed by about six weeks because it otherwise would have had only 11 months to prepare instead of the minimum 12 months. As a result, the unit it was going to replace has been forced to stay beyond its normal 12-month deployment.

In separate remarks to reporters, Gen. Richard Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, said soldiers need more than 12 months between deployments to Iraq so they can do a full range of combat training and complete the kinds of educational programs that enable the Army to grow a fully mature officer corps.

That kind of noncombat experience is necessary "so that we don't erode and become an Army that only can fight a counterinsurgency," Cody said. He added that North Korea's announced nuclear test "reminds us all that we may not just be in a counterinsurgency fight and we have to have full-spectrum capability."

 

Dow Jones
IRAK/Britischer Heereschef fordert Rückzug
Freitag 13. Oktober 2006, 07:37 Uhr



LONDON (AP)--In ungewöhnlich offener Form ist der britische Heeres- und Generalstabschef Richard Dannatt auf Distanz zur Irak-Politik von Premierminister Tony Blair gegangen. Die britischen Truppen müssten bald aus dem Irak zurückgezogen werden, sonst drohten katastrophale Konsequenzen sowohl für den Irak als auch die britische Gesellschaft, zitierte das Boulevardblatt "Daily Mail" den General in einem Interview.

Ein Bericht über das Interview veröffentlichte "Daily Mail" am Donnerstagabend auf seiner Webseite. Dannatt sagte demnach, die Anwesenheit britischer Soldaten verschlimmere inzwischen nur noch die Lage im Irak. "Was immer ANZEIGE

wir auch an Zustimmung am Anfang hatten ist nun zum größten Teil in Ignoranz umgeschlagen", sagte Dannatt. "Ich sage nicht, dass die Probleme, mit denen wir in der Welt konfrontiert werden, von unserer Anwesenheit im Irak verursacht wurden. Aber unsere Anwesenheit im Irak verschlimmert sie."

Sowohl die "Daily Mail" als auch der Rundfunksender BBC stuften Dannatts Äußerungen als eine der bislang ungewöhnlichste Stellungnahmen eines aktiven Generals zur offiziellen Regierungspolitik ein. BBC-Politikchef Nick Robinson erklärte auf der Webseite des Senders, der Heereschef widerspreche direkt "so vielem, was die Regierung gesagt hat". "Daily Mail" sprach von einer direkten Zurückweisung der Politik Blairs durch den General.

Dannatt kritisierte insbesondere die Politik und Wiederaufbauplanung nach dem erfolgreichen Feldzug 2003. "Ich denke, die Geschichte wird zeigen, dass die Planung nach dem Anfangs erfolgreichen Krieg schlecht war und womöglich mehr auf Optimismus denn auf vernünftiger Planung beruhte", wurde er zitiert. Ursprüngliches Ziel sei gewesen, eine für die Region beispielhafte liberale Demokratie zu errichten, die prowestlich sein und eine möglichst positive Wirkung auf das Gleichgewicht im Nahen Osten haben sollte. "Das war die Hoffnung, ob nun vernünftig oder naiv, das wird die Geschichte entscheiden. Ich denke nicht, dass wir das erreichen. Wir sollten uns mit weniger Ehrgeiz begnügen."

Das britische Verteidigungsminister erklärte zu dem Interview, die Regierung habe eine klare Irak-Strategie: "Wir sind dort mit unseren internationalen Verbündeten zur Unterstützung der demokratisch gewählten Regierung unter einem klaren Mandat der Vereinten Nationen." Blairs Büro teilte mit, es habe keinen Kommentar.

Dannatt sagte, die britische Truppenpräsenz verschlechtere auch die Sicherheitslage im eigenen Land. Blair hat bislang darauf bestanden, dass es keinen Zusammenhang zwischen der Lage im Irak und der Bedrohung Großbritanniens durch Terroristen gebe. Dannatt sagte: "Wir können die islamistische Herausforderung unserer Gesellschaft nicht wegwünschen und ich glaube, dass die Truppen sowohl im Irak als auch in Afghanistan und wo wir möglicherweise als nächstes hingehen die ausländische Dimension der Herausforderung bekämpfen, die der von uns akzeptierten Art zu Leben gilt."

Der im August zum Heereschef berufene General beklagte den Verlust christlicher Werte in der britischen Gesellschaft: "Unsere Gesellschaft ist in christliche Werte eingebettet; wenn man einmal den Anker hochzieht, gibt es die Gefahr, dass sich unsere Gesellschaft nach dem vorherrschenden Wind richtet."


 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. military casualties have surged in Iraq in recent weeks, with U.S. troops engaging in perilous urban sweeps to curb sectarian violence in Baghdad while facing unrelenting violence elsewhere.

At least 44 U.S. troops have been killed so far in October. At the current pace, the month would be the deadliest for U.S. forces since January 2005. After falling to 43 in July, the U.S. toll rose in August and September before spiking this month. The war's average monthly U.S. death toll is 64.

The number of U.S. troops wounded in combat also has surged, with September's total of more than 770 the highest since November 2004, when U.S. forces launched a ground offensive to clear insurgents from Falluja.


Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, briefing in Baghdad on Thursday, attributed the rising casualties to insurgent violence that coincides with the current Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as well as more aggressive operations in Baghdad.

"We assume it will still get worse before it gets better. We expect violence to continue to increase over the next two weeks, until the end of Ramadan," Caldwell said.

Caldwell said the 15,000 U.S. troops in Baghdad are focusing their efforts in the sprawling capital on curbing death squads and others responsible for sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites that the U.S. commanders believe could lead to civil war if left unchecked.

"Each time you conduct operations like that, you put your soldiers at much greater risk," Caldwell said.

Army Gen. George Casey, top U.S. commander in Iraq, said on Wednesday the level of violence over the past few weeks has been the highest of the war. There are 141,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
 

GRIM TOLL

There have been 2,757 U.S. military deaths since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The U.S. death rate and overall toll still remain far lower than in the Vietnam War, when 58,000 U.S. troops were killed.

The Pentagon said 20,895 U.S. troops have been wounded in combat, many maimed by grievous blast wounds from insurgent roadside bombs, the leading cause of American casualties. At least 6,000 others have suffered wounds in accidents and other noncombat situations.

At least tens of thousands of Iraqis also have died. A study published this week estimated 655,000 Iraqis have died due to the war. Casey offered an estimate of 50,000.


Cato Institute defense analyst Ted Carpenter described a dilemma faced by the U.S. military on casualties.

"It can hunker down and concentrate on force protection, in which case the casualties always decline," Carpenter said, but Iraq's violence might spiral out of control.

"Or it can go out and patrol more aggressively, in which case the casualties go up dramatically. So basically it's a choice of poisons for American policy-makers," Carpenter added.

U.S. commanders have declared the fight for Baghdad as the main effort of the war, demoting the longstanding counter-insurgency fight in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency.

Brookings Institution analyst Michael O'Hanlon said there has been a gradual increase in overall violence since the first year of the war as the insurgency grew in strength and sophistication.

But spikes in violence, he said, have been driven primarily by U.S. actions like the current operation in Baghdad.

On the current surge in casualties, O'Hanlon said: "We're not winning and we may even be starting to lose. That's what it should make you conclude."

 

Durch die Folgen des Krieges von 2003 im Irak sind nach einer regierungsunabhängigen Untersuchung fast 655.000 Menschen ums Leben gekommen, rund zweieinhalb Prozent der irakischen Bevölkerung. Die Studie amerikanischer und irakischer Ärzte wurde am Mittwoch vom britischen Medizin-Journal «The Lancet» online veröffentlicht. Sie untermauere eine vor zwei Jahren erschienene Einschätzung derselben Ärztegruppe, wonach es bis zum damaligen Zeitpunkt rund 100.000 zusätzliche Todesfälle seit Kriegsbeginn gegeben habe. Seitdem habe sich die Situation dramatisch entwickelt. Der US-Forscher Gilbert Burnham sprach vom bislang «tödlichsten internationalen Konflikt des 21. Jahrhunderts».Die Wissenschaftler um Gilbert Burnham von der Johns-Hopkins- Universität in Baltimore (US-Bundesstaat Maryland) hatten für die jetzt veröffentlichte Untersuchung 1849 Haushalte mit knapp 13.000 Menschen an 47 zufällig ausgewählten Orten im Irak besucht. Dort fragten sie nach Todesfällen zwischen Januar 2002 und Juni 2006, mit dem Ergebnis, dass rund 87 Prozent der 629 Registrierten nach Kriegsausbruch ums Leben gekommen waren. Das entspricht mehr als einer Verdoppelung der jährlichen Sterberate seit Beginn der US- Invasion von 55 auf 133 Todesfälle unter 10.000 MenschenMehrere Experten sagten der Zeitung, dass sie die Erhebungsmethode für tragfähig hielten. «Dies ist die beste Schätzung zur Sterblichkeit, die wir haben», betonte der Epidemiologe Ronald Waldman von der Columbia-Universität in New York.

Einzige unabhängige Untersuchung
Hochgerechnet kommen die Forscher auf landesweit 392.979 bis 942.636 zusätzliche Todesfälle im Irak durch Kriegsfolgen mit einem Mittelwert von 654.965 Toten - jene rund 2,5 Prozent der Bevölkerung. Das Fachblatt verwies auf die solide Methodik der Untersuchung. Alle vier Gutachter hätten die Veröffentlichung empfohlen, heißt es in einem redaktionellen Kommentar des ältesten Medizinjournals der Welt. Eine Gutachterin habe unterstrichen, dass diese Analyse «möglicherweise die einzige nicht regierungsfinanzierte wissenschaftliche Untersuchung sei, die eine Abschätzung der Zahl irakischer Todesfälle seit der US-Invasion liefere».Für 92 Prozent der registrierten Todesfälle seien Sterbeurkunden ausgestellt worden, schreiben die Wissenschaftler in ihrer Studie. Demnach waren mit 55 Prozent die meisten zusätzlichen Todesfälle gewaltsam. Demzufolge waren 31 Prozent der registrierten Toten aus der Zeit nach der Invasion durch Schüsse ums Leben gekommen, jeweils sieben Prozent durch Luftangriffe und Autobomben und acht Prozent durch andere Explosionen. Dabei unterscheidet die Studie nicht, ob es sich bei den Toten um Zivilisten oder Soldaten handelt. Die Autoren der betonen die völkerrechtliche Bedeutung ihrer Ergebnisse. .netzeitung  

Baltimore/Washington/Bagdad - Die US-Regierung hält die von amerikanischen und irakischen Ärzten veröffentlichte Zahl von 650 000 Kriegsfolge-Toten im Irak für unglaubwürdig.US-Präsident George W. Bush sagte in Washington, er halte die vom britischen Medizin-Journal "The Lancet" veröffentlichte Untersuchung der Ärzte für nicht glaubwürdig. Bush hatte im Dezember vergangenen Jahres die Zahl der seit Kriegsbeginn im März 2003 getöteten Iraker noch mit 30 000 angegeben.Nach Angaben des Befehlshaber der multinationalen Streitkräfte im Irak, General George Casey, ist die Zahl der Toten in neun Monaten um 20 000 auf rund 50 000 angewachsen. Er könne sich aber nicht genau erinnern, ob diese Zahl von der irakischen Regierung oder den US- Truppen stamme, sagte Casey. Nach seinen Angaben konzentrieren sich 90 Prozent aller gewaltsamen Zwischenfälle auf fünf der 18 Provinzen.  

87 % der Todesfälle nach der Okkupation und davon 31% durch militärische Angriffe der Koalition ,jeden Tag werden 500 Iraker getötet
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/...y/000476.php#more
schreibt Dahr Jamail aus dem Irak in truthout
einer seiner Bekannten im Irak,der mit irakischen NGO´s arbeitet ,sagte nach dem ersten Lancet-bericht:
This is a mayday call to all colleagues around the world to STOP writing about the Iraqi issue without having enough information from reliable sources. People are getting killed here and the country is virtually dying and it is not so human to rob the dead! IBC supposedly worked to correct the number of Iraqis killed because of the US occupation of Iraq. All I saw in this violent attack upon The Lancet was a harsh offensive that adds the killing of truth to whatever number of killings that actually took place by gunfire and bombs.  

100 000 bis 125 000 Zivilisten arbeiten im Irak uns in Afghanistan als Sichheitsdienste ,Interviewer von Gefangenen ,Truckdriver im Convoy,Minensucher...im November 2005 waren davon 428 tot und fast 4000 verwundet worden.Da gab es Captain Eysselinck,der für RONCO Consulting Corporation arbeitete und seit August 2003 bis Februar 2004 Clusterbomben und andere Minen im Irak entschärfte.Er erlebte viel Grausamkeit ,auch wie Unschuldige getötet wurden und 2 Wochen vor seinem Tod sagte er zu einem Freund,er solle besser zurückkehren .Er kam mit posttraumatischen Stresssyndrom nach Namibia.Seine mutter erzählte ,es habe ihn erschüttert zu sehen ,dass der Krieg falsch war,Er sprach von Korruption,Lügen,Gier und brutaler Dummheit,Er war empört über die Bush-Regierung und über Bremer.Eine Woche bevor er starb,sagte er zu einem Freund ,er schäme sich ein Amerikaner zu sein.
Eysselinck war 9 Jahre als Captain in der US-Armee,ein qualifizierter Ranger, und nur ausgetreten,weil seine Frau dies vor der Heirat verlangte.Nach seienr Rückkkehr konnte er nicht mehr schlafen,er verschloss die Türen,zitterte manchmal ,hatte unkontrollierte Wutanfälle ,schrieb an seine Männer jeden zweiten Tag.Kurz darauf tötete er sich.
Seine Frau erzählte ,er habe erzählt,ein Convoy sei an Häusern vorbei gefahren und sie hätten einfach auf Zivilisten geschossen,Dann hätten sie geleugnet wenn Zivilisten getötet werden,das Militär müsse keine Entschädigung zahlen.Es sei wie ein Grinsen gewesen.Sie wusste nicht einmal ,was post-traumatic stress disorder ist.5 Minuten vor seinem Tod sagte er brauche professionelle Hilfe.
Nach seinem Tod weigerte sich Ronco,die PTSD als Folge seiner Tätigkeit anzuerkennen.Sie dicreditierten ihn und sprachen von einem ererbten Gen.Obwohl die Firma Aufträge über 10 Millionen hat,sagten sie, die Firma sei zu klein,um eine Pensionskasse zu haben.Sie sandten eine Kranz zur Beerdigung
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/  

Freitag, 13. Oktober 2006

Bauarbeiter im Irak enthauptet

Im Irak haben Extremisten 14 Bauarbeiter entführt und erschossen. Die Polizei fand die enthaupteten Leichen der Männer auf einem Feld nahe der Ortschaft Duluija, 100 Kilometer nördlich von Bagdad. Die Männer aus der Nachbarstadt Balad waren während ihrer Arbeit auf einer Baustelle in Duluija verschleppt worden. In Balad wohnen mehrheitlich Schiiten, während in den umliegenden Ortschaften vor allem Angehörige sunnitischer Stämme leben.
 

OXFORD, England (CNN) -- A coroner ruled on Friday that a British journalist who died in Iraq at the start of the war was unlawfully killed by American forces.

Terry Lloyd, a correspondent with the British TV network ITN , was killed outside Basra in southern Iraq in March 2003.

Oxfordshire Assistant Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker said he'll be writing the director of public prosecutions to seek to bring the perpetrators to justice.

"Terry Lloyd died following a gunshot wound to the head. The evidence this bullet was fired by the Americans is overwhelming," Walker said.

The U.S. Department of Defense said its forces had followed proper rules of engagement.

Lebanese interpreter Hussein Osman also was killed in the ITN crew, and cameraman Fred Nerac remains missing. ITN cameraman Daniel Demoustier survived.

Lloyd -- who was aged 50 -- was shot in the back during U.S. and Iraqi crossfire and was apparently shot by U.S. forces when he was taken away in a minibus for treatment.

"There is no doubt that the minibus presented no threat to the American forces. There is no doubt it was an unlawful act of fire upon the minibus," Walker said.

There were statements from U.S. military officers about the incident, but the coroner said "it was and is essential they attend and it is not satisfactory to have their statements read in court."

In Washington, the Defense Department said a U.S. investigation "determined that U.S. forces followed the applicable rules of engagement."

"The Department of Defense has never deliberately targeted noncombatants, including journalists," the Pentagon said. "We have always gone to extreme measures to avoid civilian casualties and collateral damage."

Lloyd's family members denounced the action and want justice.

Chelsey Lloyd, Terry Lloyd's daughter, urged after the inquest that the soldiers and their commanding officers be brought to justice.

"They did not come to this inquest to explain their actions. Let them now do so in our criminal courts where they are guaranteed to get a fair trial."

She said the "value of the inquest has been demonstrated."

"Until now we were unaware that my father was able to stand and walk to a makeshift ambulance after being shot once by an Iraqi bullet. The man who stopped to help my father was an ordinary Iraqi whose intentions were to take him and other wounded to a nearby hospital.

"After helping my father into his minibus the evidence shows that the vehicle whilst driving the wounded away was fired on by U.S. forces, and that one bullet entered my father's head after passing through the vehicle, and it was this American bullet which killed him."

A statement read by an attorney for Lloyd's widow, Lynn, said the court established that the "circumstances of his death from an American bullet whilst being ferried to hospital is a very serious war crime" and that the Marines should now stand trial.

"The evidence of how Terry Lloyd was unlawfully killed has shown that this was not, I wish to stress, a friendly fire blue on blue incident or a crossfire incident. It was a despicable, deliberate, vengeful act, particularly as it came many minutes after the end of the initial exchanges in which Mr. Lloyd had been hit by an Iraqi bullet."

Her statement said "U.S. forces appeared to have allowed their soldiers to behave like trigger-happy cowboys in an area in which there were civilians traveling on a highway, both Iraqi and European."

 

Erwa wenn wir uns vergegenwärtigen, was die Mörderbande unter den Irakern täglich veranstaltet.  

und Blair sagt ,er sei genau derselben Ansicht,dass man gehen werde ,wenn die Arbeit getan ist.Spekulationen,dass die USA eingeschritten seien,wie sie von BBC geäussert wurden,werden von Downingstreet zurückgewiesen Im Grunde seien seine Bemerkungen "nicht substantiell neu oder vom Gehalt her berichtenswert", so  versuchte gestern der britische Armeechef General Richard Dannatt den  Wirbel um seine Äußerungen von Donnerstag zu relativieren. Der englischen Zeitung Daily Mail gegenüber hatte sich der General in einem Interview dafür ausgesprochen, die britischen Truppen "sometime soon" aus dem Irak zurückzuziehen. Andernfalls würde man "katastrophale Konsequenzen" sowohl für die britische wie die irakische Gesellschaft riskieren; die fortgesetzte Präsenz britischer Soldaten würde die Sicherheitsprobleme im Irak verschlimmern.weil der "very honest General" - so der Titel des [extern] Interviews ? seit August die britischen Truppen im Irak kommandiert, sind seine Äußerungen ungewöhnlich, für einen hochrangigen Militär beispiellos, wie der Guardian und die BBC bemerkten, und mit einer ganz anderen politischen Ladung versehen als die übliche Kritik von Kriegsgegnern.
In seinem Interview ließ Dannat unter anderem durchblicken, dass die Blair-Regierung den Waffengang im Irak womöglich mit einem gewissen Maß an Naivität und ohne Plan für "die Zeit danach" unternommen habe,ihn beschäftige die Sorge, dass die Armee zerbrechen  könnte, wenn sie zu lange im Irak bleibe. Er wolle auch in fünf und in zehn Jahren noch eine Armee. Man solle sich vergegenwärtigen, dass die britischen Soldaten in einem muslimischen Land seien. Die Ansicht von Muslimen über Fremde in ihrem Land sei "ziemlich klar". Zumal man als Fremder dort nur willkommen geheißen würde, wenn man in das Land eingeladen worden sei, "aber wir waren damals sicher nicht eingeladen."...Doch hinter der Fassade dürfte man in der Downing Street nicht sehr glücklich über die Aussagen des Armeechefs sein, da sie die Isolation von Blair und seinem Kabinett in dieser Frage zeigen. Die Unterstützung für die Mission im Irak scheint außerhalb der Regierung gegenwärtig sehr schwach zu sein. Kein Zufall, dass Dannatt seine kritischen Äußerungen in einem Boulevardblatt machen konnte. Und deutlich wird in den gestrigen Reaktionen auf Dannats freie Rede, dass niemand den Inhalt der Aussagen des Generals laut kritisiert hat, sondern nur sein Ausscheren aus der Regel, dass sich Militärs nicht in politische Angelegenheiten einzumischen hätten:  "On matters like this, senior soldiers should keep their mouths shut."  
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/23/23749/1.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1922438,00.html  

US-Armee

23 US-Soldaten alleine diese Woche ums Leben gekommen....


2752 (2729) lt. Pentagon



http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf  

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The bodies of 26 Iraqis, apparently killed in retaliation for the slaying of 14 Shiite construction workers, have been found scattered in and around the city of Balad, according to an official with Salaheddin Joint Coordination Center.

The 14 Shiite construction workers, kidnapped Thursday in the mainly Sunni town of Dhuluiya in Salaheddin province, were found Friday morning with their throats slit and hands and legs bound, the official said.

The workers were from the Shiite town of Balad, near Dhuluiya, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Baghdad.

The official said it appeared the 26 deaths around Balad since the discovery of the slain construction workers was due to Shiite retaliation. The bodies were discovered on Friday and Saturday.

He said a curfew has been imposed in Balad and Dhuluiya and a team of Iraqi police was sent to Balad to investigate.

Shake-up at Interior Ministry
News of the apparent sectarian killings came as Iraq's Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry announced a leadership shake-up and the firing of 3,000 employees accused of corruption or rights abuses, according to The Associated Press.

Spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf told AP that the Interior Ministry shake-up would ensure stronger action to stop the violence.

"We are working on reshuffling the ministry's vital posts like [the leaders of the] police commandos and public order forces, as well as some undersecretaries," he told AP without elaborating.

He said most of the 3,000 employees who had been removed since May were suspected of corruption or human rights violations, but Khalaf did not specify whether they were involved in militia activities. Up to 600 of them will face prosecution, he said.

The Shiite-led national police force, controlled by the Interior Ministry, is widely accused of being infiltrated by Shiite militias blamed in slayings of Sunni Arabs. Critics say Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been reluctant to move against the militias because many are linked to parties in his coalition, according to AP.

Earlier this month the Interior Ministry said it removed an Iraqi police brigade from the streets of Baghdad after police were suspected in a brazen kidnapping. (Full story)

The commander of one of the brigade's battalions faces criminal prosecution and others are being investigated, AP reported.

American, 5 Iraqis sentenced to death
An American citizen and five Iraqis who were convicted on charges relating to the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists have been sentenced to death in an Iraqi court, according to a U.S. Embassy statement.

The Associated Press identified the American as Mohammad Munaf and said he has denied any role in the kidnapping of the journalists. Munaf was their guide and translator, according to AP.

Munaf was convicted and sentenced to death by an Iraqi judge this week, AP reported.

All six defendants were sentenced by the Criminal Central Court of Iraq for violating Article 421 of the Iraqi Criminal Code, the embassy statement said. U.S. officials said they'll continue to ensure the treatment of the American complies with Iraqi law.

The identities of the other five defendants were not disclosed.

The kidnapping victims were journalists Marie Jeanne Ion, 32; Sorin Miscoci, 30 and Ovidiu Ohanesian, 37. the were abducted in Baghdad on March 28, 2005, and two months later, they were released unharmed and returned to Bucharest.

During their captivity, the journalists appeared on Arabic-language satellite news channel Al-Jazeera appealing to Romania's government to pull its troops from Iraq. It is unknown how the hostages were freed.

Other developments

A U.S. airman was killed Saturday in the Baghdad area while serving as a turret gunner with Iraqi police, U.S. Central Command Air Forces said. The airman was assigned to the 732nd Expeditionary Mission Support Group, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing.


A Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 died Saturday from wounds received in Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad. It was not immediately clear when he was wounded Saturday.


A Multi-National Division-Baghdad soldier died Friday night from wounds he received when the vehicle he was riding in was struck by an improvised-explosive device southwest of Baghdad, the military said. The deaths bring the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq to 2,750 and seven military contractors, according to military reports. Forty-three American troops have been killed in the war in October, according to the U.S. military.


Two Egyptians were killed in two separate attacks on Saturday in the Iraqi city of Baquba, police said. Gunmen opened fire on Ramadan Younis, 55, in his grocery in the southern neighborhood of Tahrir. Thirty minutes later, gunmen opened fire and killed Hisham al-Musri, 45. He was shot dead in central Baquba's main market.  

tsts


BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi police found 83 bodies in Iraq over the weekend, an official with Baghdad emergency police said.

The official said 51 bullet-riddled bodies were found in Baghdad, with some of the bodies showing signs of torture. Iraqi police could not immediately identify the bodies.

The official said Iraqi police found 18 of the bodies on Saturday and another 33 on Sunday.

In addition, 26 bodies were found in Balad on Saturday and six bodies were found in Baquba and Mosul, officials said.

Not included in that toll were at least another eight people who were killed and 40 wounded in six car-bomb blasts on Sunday -- four of them within a 30-minute period -- in the oil-rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, police reported.

The first car bomb exploded at the entrance to a popular market around 10:30 a.m. (0730 GMT). The second detonated 10 minutes later in an area of the city that has several checkpoints and where Iraqi security forces patrol.

The third blast, around 10:50 a.m., was located outside a building that houses police who provide security for government offices. The building is located near an Islamic school for girls and some of the students were among the casualties, police said.

The fourth car bomb exploded at about 11 a.m. outside a teachers institute, police said.

The fifth and sixth explosions occurred at about 2:25 p.m. nearly simultaneously, one at the site of the second blast near the checkpoints and another that appeared to target a car dealership.

The explosions all appeared to emanate from parked, unoccupied cars, officials said, and are the latest in a string of violence in Kirkuk over the past two months.

On September 17, a series of bombings killed at least 23 people in the city.

Earlier this month, officials imposed a curfew and ban on vehicles and pedestrians from moving about the city for two days, during which security forces conducted house-to-house searches.

Kirkuk -- home to Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens -- has been a cauldron of ethnic tension.

 

Wird Todesstrafe nicht vollzogen?

Saddam: Bereit jenen zu vergeben, die den Amerikanern geholfen haben.Nach mehr als einem Jahr neigt sich der erste Prozess gegen den ehemaligen irakischen Machthaber Saddam Hussein mit der Festlegung des Datums für die Urteilsverkündung dem Ende zu.

Die Richter einigten sich am Montag in einer geschlossenen Sitzung darauf, dass der Prozess am 5. November fortgesetzt werden soll. Möglicherweise werde an diesem Tag bereits das Urteil gesprochen, zumindest soll das Datum dafür bis dahin feststehen.


Während die Staatsanwaltschaft für den Ex-Diktator und zwei der insgesamt sieben Mitangeklagten die Todesstrafe fordert, fürchten Experten, dass damit dem ohnehin noch immer nicht zur Ruhe gekommenen Land eine neue Welle der Gewalt droht.


"Totales, vollkommenes Chaos"
Zuletzt warnte Ex-US-Justizminister Ramsey Clark, einer der Anwälte von Hussein, vor den derzeit nicht abschätzbaren Folgen einer Hinrichtung Saddams. Ein Todesurteil würde laut Clark von der sunnitischen Minderheit als Racheakt der schiitisch dominierten und von den USA unterstützten Regierung betrachtet werden.


Die Folge wären "katastrophale Gewalt" und "totales, vollkommenes Chaos": "Das Ende der Zivilisation, wie wir sie kennen, am Geburtsort der Zivilisation in Mesopotamien", so Clark.


Hussein rechnet mit Todesstrafe
Offen bleibt, ob Husseins Verteidiger mit Schreckensszenarien wie diesen die Todesstrafe noch abwenden können. Mit Chalil el Dulaimi machte ein weiterer Anwalt Husseins allerdings keinen Hehl daraus, dass auch sein Mandant selbst auf diese Karte setzt.


Demnach rechnet Hussein zwar mit der Verkündigung der Todesstrafe, gehe aber gleichzeitig von weiteren Verhandlungen mit den USA aus.


"Die USA werden das Urteil dazu verwenden, um Saddam dazu zu bringen, ihnen aus dem Schlamassel zu helfen", zeigte sich Dulaimi in der US-Zeitung "New York Times" überzeugt.


Hussein-Aufruf zu Toleranz
Im Endstadium des Prozesses präsentierte Dulaimi am Montag nun auch das Bild eines einsichtigen Saddam Hussein, der seine Landsleute auffordert, die Gewalt zwischen den Religionsgruppen einzustellen.


Hussein habe Dulaimi aufgefordert, eine Botschaft an die Iraker zu übermitteln. Darin forderte er diese laut Dulaimi auf, denjenigen zu vergeben, die mit den Amerikanern kollaboriert hätten.


Auch er sei bereit, denjenigen zu vergeben, die den Amerikanern geholfen hätten, im Juli 2003 seine beiden Söhne Udai und Kusai zu töten. Der Fastenmonat Ramadan, der in der kommenden Woche endet, gilt den Muslimen als Zeit der Versöhnung.


Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit
Hussein werden in dem zu Ende gehenden Prozess die Ermordung von 148 Schiiten und die Folter von Hunderten weiteren Bewohnern des Dorfes Dudschail im Jahr 1982 vorgeworfen.


Im Fall eines Schuldspruchs droht Hussein wegen Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit der Tod durch den Strang, wobei er bereits bekannt gab, lieber erschossen als erhängt zu werden.


Mitte August muss sich der frühere irakische Machthaber zudem in einem zweiten Verfahren vor Gericht verantworten. Dabei wird ihm Völkermord an Kurden in den 80er Jahren vorgeworfen.


 

Versöhnungskonferenz abgesagt

Sunnitische Extremistengruppe ruft Gottesstaat im Irak aus.Eine Gruppe extremistischer Sunniten hat am Montag in einer in arabischen TV-Sendern ausgestrahlten Videobotschaft im Irak einen separaten Sunnitenstaat ausgerufen.

In Bagdad und mehreren mehrheitlich von Sunniten bewohnten Regionen des Irak sei demnach ein "islamischer Gottesstaat" gegründet worden, wie der Sprecher der mit der Terrororganisation El Kaida in Zusammenhang gebrachten Gruppierung mitteilte.


Die Entscheidung sei getroffen worden, da sich sowohl Kurden als auch Schiiten bereits jeweils einen Staat gesichert hätten. Die Echtheit des Videos ließ sich allerdings zunächst nicht überprüfen.


Förderalismusreform gebilligt
Das irakische Parlament hatte vergangenen Mittwoch grünes Licht für eine Föderalismusreform gegeben. Die Abgeordneten stimmten für ein umstrittenes Gesetz, das es den 18 Provinzen erlaubt, sich zu größeren Regionen zusammenzuschließen.


Bei der vom Parlament mit äußerst knapper Mehrheit angenommenen Reform, die nach einem ebenfalls beschlossenen Moratorium allerdings frühestens in 18 Monaten umgesetzt werden kann, befürchten vor allem die Sunniten, dass die von ihnen dominierten ärmeren Provinzen vornehmlich im Westen des Landes durch die Neustrukturierung gegenüber den ölreichen Schiitenregionen im Süden weiter ins Hintertreffen geraten könnten.


Mit den neuen Regelungen könnten sich "Super-Provinzen" mit einem größeren Grad an Autonomie bilden, wie sie die Kurdengebiete im Norden de facto bereits genießen.


Versöhnungskonferenz abgesagt
Angesichts der Spannungen zwischen den einzelnen Volksgruppen wurde für kommenden Samstag eine Versöhnungskonferenz angekündigt - diese wurde allerdings "aus dringenden Gründen" abgesagt.


In einer Stellungnahme hieß es, das Treffen werde auf unbestimmte Zeit verschoben.


Die gewaltsamen Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Schiiten und Sunniten sowie Anschläge von Aufständischen kosten im Irak jede Woche Hunderte Menschen das Leben. Ministerpräsident Nuri el Maliki ist es bisher nicht gelungen, eine breite politische Koalition zu schmieden.


 

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The death toll for coalition military forces in Iraq hit 3,000 Monday, according to a CNN tally.

The combined death toll includes 2,759 U.S. troops and seven American civilian contractors of the military.

Other coalition deaths include 119 British, 32 Italians, 18 Ukrainians, 17 Poles, 13 Bulgarians, and 11 Spaniards, as well as service members from Australia, Denmark, Estonia, Fiji, Holland, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Romania, Salvador, Slovakia, and Thailand.

The milestone was reached after U.S. military officials announced the deaths of five U.S. soldiers and Marines over the weekend.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed Sunday and two were wounded during fighting in Kirkuk, the U.S. military said Monday. The soldiers were assigned to 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.

Earlier, officials announced the death of another U.S. soldier serving with Multi-National Division - Baghdad, killed late Sunday when his vehicle was hit by a bomb north of Baghdad.

Two U.S. Marines assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 also died Sunday during combat operations in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, the military said.

In October, U.S. officials have reported 52 service member deaths, for a total of 586 this year.

The Iraqi death toll continued to rise on Monday as well.

In the latest attack, two car bombs exploded about 5:20 p.m. (10:20 a.m. ET) in northeast Baghdad, killing 20 people and wounding 17, officials said.

The first bomb obliterated a tent packed with mourners at the funeral of a father of an Iraqi police officer. Among those killed and wounded were Iraqi police officers, an official with Qudous police station told CNN. The second car bomb exploded at the same time in an outdoor market just few hundred yards away, the official said.

Monday's violence in Baghdad began shortly after sunrise.

Three people were killed and seven wounded, including six Iraqi police, when two roadside bombs exploded within 30 minutes, according to an official with Baghdad emergency police.

About an hour later, a roadside bomb attack wounded three Iraqi police as they patrolled near the University of Technology in southeastern Baghdad, police said.

Seven people, including four Iraqi police, were wounded an hour after that, when a car bomb exploded targeting another Iraqi police patrol in southeastern Baghdad, police reported.

Three Iraqi civilians died and six people, including one Iraqi soldier, were wounded in clashes Monday afternoon between gunmen and Iraqi soldiers in Midas square in northern Baghdad.

Baghdad emergency police said 26 bullet-riddled bodies were found by Iraqi police in various Baghdad neighborhoods Monday. Some bodies showed signs of torture, police said. Officials said they could not immediately identify the bodies.

In Khalis, a town near Baquba and about 50 miles north of Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a crowd of people in a bus station Monday in Iraq, killing four and wounding three others, an official said.

In a separate attack two hours earlier on a road between Khalis and Baquba, gunmen shot into a car, killing two people, including an Iraqi police officer, and wounding another, a local official said.

Three bullet-riddled bodies, including that of an Iraqi police officer, were found by police Monday morning in Baquba.

Another three people were killed later Monday by gunmen in Muqdadiya, about 25 miles north of Baquba.

In the town of Suwayrah, south of Baghdad, at least eight people were killed and 20 others were wounded when a car bomb exploded in a busy outdoor market, the mayor said. Hospital officials said nine people were killed and another 35 were wounded in the attack.

Insurgent group wants to negotiate
In a videotape obtained by CNN Sunday, one of Iraq's most visible insurgent groups repeated an offer to negotiate with U.S. forces.

In the professionally produced videotaped message, the speaker -- whose face is obscured -- offers a set of conditions which he says could lead to an end to the group's ongoing insurgency and peace with U.S. occupation forces.

The speaker is believed to be Ibrahim al-Shimary, a spokesman for the Sunni insurgent group called the Islamic Army of Iraq.

In the video, he sets two critical conditions for ending the insurgency -- a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops, and a formal recognition of the Iraqi insurgency as a party to any talks.

"America and Iran are occupying Iraq. America is the disease which caused the symptom which is the Iranian occupation, but today, the symptom has become more dangerous than the disease," the speaker says in the video.

The message came as Iraqi police found 83 bodies over the weekend, an official with Baghdad emergency police said.

The official said 51 bullet-riddled bodies were found in Baghdad, with some of the bodies showing signs of torture. Iraqi police could not immediately identify the bodies. (Full story)

Other developments

Iraq's government indefinitely postponed a much-anticipated national reconciliation conference Sunday, according to The Associated Press. In announcing the postponement, the Ministry of State for National Dialogue said only that the gathering, which was planned for Saturday, had been put off for "emergency reasons out of the control of the ministry," according to AP.



A Sunni insurgent coalition is calling for a separate Islamic state in parts of Iraq's capital and in other provinces with a large Sunni population, according to a statement posted on an Islamic Web site Sunday. On Wednesday, Iraq's parliament approved a law that would allow the country's 18 provinces to hold referenda on merging with other provinces to create a federal region.

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

 

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military announced on Wednesday the deaths of 10 U.S. troops in Iraq on Tuesday, an unusually bloody day for American soldiers battling sectarian violence and a Sunni Arab insurgency.

The rise in U.S. deaths in Iraq coincides with the run-up to U.S. congressional elections next month, in which the Iraq war has become a major issue. President George W. Bush's popularity has been hurt by growing discontent over the war.

Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, who is drafting a widely anticipated report on possible alternatives to current U.S. policy in Iraq, has warned there is no "magic bullet" to solve deepening problems in Iraq.


At least 68 U.S. troops have been killed in October -- a pace, that if continues, would make it the deadliest month for U.S. forces since January 2005. At least 2,777 have died since the invasion in 2003.

After falling to 43 in July, the U.S. toll rose to 65 in August and to 71 in September. U.S. commanders, who have declared the fight for Baghdad the war's main effort, have conducted major security sweeps in the capital since August, massing neighborhoods with troops to flush out militants.

Some 15,000 U.S. troops in Baghdad are focusing efforts in the sprawling capital on curbing death squads and other armed groups. U.S. commanders have attributed the rising death toll to more aggressive patrolling in Baghdad, the epicenter of sectarian violence that kills 100 people a day.

In the worst violence on Tuesday, four soldiers were killed when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement. Roadside bombs are the deadliest weapon for U.S. troops in Iraq.

Three were killed and one wounded while conducting operations in Diyala province, north of Baghdad.   Continued...

 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Another three U.S. Marines will be tried on murder charges in the death of an Iraqi grandfather kidnapped from his house in Hamdania in the middle of the night, the U.S. Marine Corps said on Wednesday.

Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the top Marine general in the Middle East, said Lance Corporal Tyler Jackson, Lance Corporal Robert Pennington and Corporal Trent Thomas would face murder, kidnapping and other charges stemming from the April 2006 death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad.
 

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A two-month U.S.-led military operation aimed at cracking down on insurgent attacks in Baghdad is being re-evaluated after a "disheartening" rise in violence, an American spokesman said Thursday.

"Operation Together Forward has made a difference in the focus areas but has not met our overall expectations of sustaining a reduction in the levels of violence," said the U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell.

"We are working very closely with the government of Iraq to determine how best to refocus our efforts."

CNN's Barbara Starr called the announcement of a change in plans a "huge admission."

"I would tell you we're obviously very concerned about what we're seeing in the city. We're taking a lot of time to go back and look at the whole Baghdad security plan," Caldwell said.

"We're asking ourselves if the conditions under which it was first devised and planned still exist today or have the conditions changed and therefore modification to the plan need to be made."

Thirteen U.S. service members were killed on Tuesday and Wednesday, bringing the American death toll to 72 in October and putting the month on track to become one of the deadliest for U.S. forces since the 2003 invasion. (Watch disturbing video of snipers documenting U.S. soldiers -- 5:16)

Caldwell said insurgents are looking to influence midterm elections in the United States.

"It's no coincidence that the surge in attacks against coalition forces and subsequent increase in U.S. casualties coincide with our increased presence on the streets in Baghdad and the run-up to the American midterm elections," he said.

"The enemy knows killing innocent people and Americans will garner headlines and create a sense of frustration. However, the coalition will not be deterred from establishing an Iraq that can provide for its own security and govern itself."

Questions raised over al-Sadr official's release
U.S. and Iraqi officials suspect that the Mehdi militia of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has been involved in the sectarian revenge killings plaguing Baghdad. At Thursday's press briefing, Caldwell faced questions about the arrest by U.S. and Iraqi troops of an al-Sadr official named Sheikh Mazen al-Saedi and his subsequent release Wednesday by the Iraqi government.

The arrest was conducted on the suspicion that al-Saedi was involved in illegal activities, Caldwell said. Al-Saedi was released at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Reporters wanted to know why the release occurred. One asked whether such a raid is making soldiers' jobs more difficult and whether the U.S.-led coalition can succeed if the prime minister doesn't allow arrests to be made.

Caldwell called the United States a guest of Iraq, saying that "they're an independent, sovereign nation." He said it was the government's prerogative to pursue that course and that he "has a lot of information we're not privy to" in making such a determination.

Caldwell said that the sheikh was detained because of his involvement in suspicious activity and that he signed a conditional release promising to support Iraq's government and disavow future acts of violence.

One reporter asked about accepting requests from Iraq's Shiite-led government, questioning if such a move didn't mean that the United States is taking the side of Shiites against Sunnis.

But Caldwell said the coalition targets anyone "operating outside of the law" -- no matter who he is.

More violence during Ramadan
Caldwell said that there has been an uptick in violence during the holy month of Ramadan, which ends in a few days.

"Violence and progress do co-exist here in Iraq," Caldwell said. "The violence continues against security forces and innocent Iraqis during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Traditionally, this is a time of great celebration. It has instead been a period of increased violence, not just this year, but during the past two years as well."

He noted a 22 percent increase in attacks during the first three weeks of Ramadan compared with the three weeks preceding the holy month.

Caldwell said the security crackdown in Baghdad "has made a difference in the specific areas but not reduced the levels of violence."