Iraqis welcome U.S. Congress vote but fear vacuum

By Mussab Al-Khairalla Fri Apr 27,

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqis are glad U.S. soldiers could soon depart but fearful of what they might leave behind, after the U.S. Congress approved a bill linking troop withdrawals to war funding.


"U.S. forces have to leave Iraq but not now," said Abu Ali, a 47-year-old trader from the southern city of Basra, on Friday.

"The Iraqi government and its security forces are unable to control security, especially in Baghdad and its neighborhoods."

Like many, he said tying funding to a timetable to withdraw U.S. troops over the next 11 months would force Iraq's police and army units to shape up quicker.

"We demand a withdrawal but not in one go, so that there is no vacuum," said Tarek Qader, a 55-year-old retiree from the northern city of Kirkuk.

Added Baghdad student Ali Adel: "The exit of the occupation has to be preceded by the building of Iraqi forces and national reconciliation."

In a rebuke to President George W. Bush, the Democrat- controlled Congress on Thursday approved legislation linking withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq to paying for the war.

Bush has promised to veto the bill. He is sending an additional 30,000 soldiers to Iraq, mainly to back a security crackdown in Baghdad that is regarded as a last-ditch attempt to drag Iraq back from the brink of all-out civil war.

The Senate joined the House of Representatives in backing the bill that would provide about $100 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year while setting a deadline to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq over the next 11 months.

"I'm glad some Americans have finally realized they are no longer welcome here," said Hakim, a 25-year-old army officer in Baghdad who declined to give his last name.

SPEED UP RECONCILIATION

U.S. officials regard the Baghdad security plan as a chance to buy time for Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to speed up reconciliation with minority Sunni Arabs, who feel marginalized.

Maliki insists no timetable will be set for withdrawing the 150,000 American troops until his own security forces are ready.

"There has to be an agreement on the shape of the political map for Iraq after the U.S. forces' withdrawal since there are many pending issues ... it will result in the division of Iraq," said Abdullah Khaled from Kirkuk.

Some Iraqis said a quick withdrawal would be dangerous. "I would expect a power struggle and the increase of violence," said Mohammed Younis, a 43-year-old engineer.

Fellow Baghdadi Bassim Abdulla agreed. "Differences in Washington will encourage militants to increase their attacks after they realize Bush has lost domestic support for the war."

"The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq without ensuring Iraqi troops can provide and maintain security will result in massacres and a humanitarian disaster," said Omar al-Dulaimi, from Ramadi, in the volatile western Anbar province.

Others felt the presence of U.S. troops was fuelling the insurgency and their departure could only help.

"If the occupation leaves, all acts of violence in Iraq will end due to less suicide bombers, and the interference of neighboring countries will be unjustified," said Qassim Uthman, a 51-year-old teacher.

(Additional reporting by Mustafa Mahmoud in Kirkuk and Aref Mohammed in Basra)

9 U.S. troops die in Iraq battle, blasts

An Iraqi girl gets a close look at an Iraqi National Guardsman patrolling Haifa Street in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 7, 2005. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
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By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded Saturday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala as the streets were packed with people heading for evening prayers, killing at least 58 and wounding scores near some of the country's most sacred shrines. Separately, the U.S. military announced the deaths of nine American troops, including three killed Saturday in a single roadside bombing outside Baghdad.

With black smoke clogging the skies above Karbala, angry crowds hurled stones at police and later stormed the provincial governor's house, accusing authorities of failing to protect them from the unrelenting bombings usually blamed on Sunni insurgents. It was the second car bomb to strike the city's central area in two weeks.

Near the blast site, survivors frantically searched for missing relatives. Iraqi television showed one man carrying the charred body of a small girl above his head as he ran down the street while ambulances rushed to retrieve the wounded and firefighters sprayed water at fires in the wreckage, leaving pools of bloody water.

The Americans killed in Iraq included five who died in fighting Friday in Anbar province, three killed when a roadside bomb struck their patrol southeast of Baghdad and one killed in a separate roadside bombing south of the capital.

The deaths raised to 99 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died this month and at least 3,346 who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The blast took place about 7 p.m. in a crowded commercial area near the shrines of Imam Abbas and Imam Hussein, major Shiite saints.

Security officials said the car packed with explosives was parked near a cement barrier intended to keep traffic away from the shrines, which draw thousands of Shiite pilgrims from Iran and other countries.

That suggested the attack, which occurred two weeks after 47 people were killed and 224 were wounded in a car bombing in the same area on April 14, was aimed at killing as many Shiite worshippers as possible.

Salim Kazim, the head of the health department in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, said 58 people were killed and 168 wounded. The figures were confirmed by Abdul-Al al-Yassiri, the head of Karbala's provincial council.

"I did not expect this explosion because I thought the place was well protected by the police," said Qassim Hassan, a clothing merchant who was injured by the blast. "I demand a trial for the people in charge of the security in Karbala."

Hassan, who spoke to a reporter from his hospital bed, said his brother and a cousin were still missing.

"I regret that I voted for those traitors who only care about their posts, not the people who voted for them," he said.

The U.S. military has warned that such bombings were intended to provoke retaliatory violence by Shiite militias, whose members have largely complied with political pressure to avoid confrontations with Americans during the U.S. troop buildup.

The radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr launched a strong attack earlier Saturday on President Bush, calling him the "greatest evil" for refusing to withdraw American troops from Iraq.

Al-Sadr's statement was read during a parliament session by his cousin, Liqaa al-Yassin, after Congress ordered U.S. troops to begin leaving Iraq by Oct. 1. Bush pledged to veto the measure and neither the House nor the Senate had enough votes to override him.

"Here are the Democrats calling you to withdraw or even set a timetable and you are not responding," al-Sadr's statement said. "It is not only them who are calling for this but also Republicans, to whom you belong."

"If you are ignoring your friends and partners, then it is no wonder that you ignore the international and Iraqi points of view," he added.

Al-Sadr led two armed uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004, and his Mahdi militia is believed responsible for much of Iraq's sectarian killing. The U.S. military says he has fled to Iran, although his followers insist he is hiding in Iraq. Abdul-Al al-Yassiri, the head of the Karbala provincial council, said local authorities had raised fears that militants fleeing the Baghdad security crackdown were infiltrating their area.

"We have contacted the interior minister and asked them to supply us with equipment that can detect explosives," he said.

Ali Mohammed, 31, who sells prayer beads in the area, said he heard the blast and felt himself hurled into the air.

"The next thing I knew I opened my eyes in the hospital with my legs and chest burned," he said. "This is a disaster. What is the guilt of the children and women killed today by this terrorist attack?"

Crowds stormed the provincial government offices and the governor's house, burning part of it along with three cars and scuffling with guards. Security forces detained several armed protesters, said Ghalib al-Daami, a provincial council member.

Saturday's bombing was the deadliest attack in Iraq since April 18, when 127 people were killed in a car bombing near the Sadriyah market in Baghdad — one of four bombings that killed a total of 183 people in the bloodiest day since a U.S.-Iraq security operation began in the capital more than 10 weeks ago.

In all, at least 119 people were killed or found dead, including the bodies of 38 people killed execution-style — apparent victims of the so-called sectarian death squads mostly run by Shiite militias.

In Baghdad, a mortar attack killed two people and wounded seven in the Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah, where the U.S. military recently announced it was building a three-mile long, 12-foot high concrete wall despite protests from residents and Sunni politicians that they were being isolated.

The U.S. military also said Saturday that a suicide truck bomber attacked the home of a city police chief the day before in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, killing nine Iraqi security forces and six civilians. Police chief Hamid Ibrahim al-Numrawi and his family escaped injury after Iraqi forces opened fire on the truck before it reached the concrete barrier outside the home in Hit, 85 miles west of Baghdad.

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Baird rejects Gore's criticism of Tory green plan

Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, now one of the world's most famous climate-change activists, has called the federal government's new green plan "a fraud."

Gore criticized the plan while in Toronto on Saturday to attend the Green Living Show and screen his Oscar-winning documentary on the environment, An Inconvenient Truth.

Conservative Environment Minister John Baird promptly shot back, saying Gore didn't do nearly as much to fight climate change during eight years in office.

"The fact is our plan is vastly tougher than any measures introduced by the administration of which the former vice-president was a member," Baird said in news release.

Gore was vice-president from 1993 to 2001 when Bill Clinton was president.

Baird also said it was "regrettable" that Gore spoke without having been briefed on the Conservative plan.

The Conservatives have said their strategy, introduced earlier in the week, will reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and improve air quality, but Gore said he has heard it all before, south of the border, and he doesn't like what he hears.

"I'm hearing a reduction in intensity is going to be presented to the Canadian people as a legitimate policy," he said at the consumer environmental show. "In my opinion, it is a complete and total fraud. It is designed to mislead the Canadian people."

A reduction in intensity means that big industrial emitters of greenhouse gases will have to reduce emissions for each unit of output, but total output could increase.

Former U.S. vice-president supports Suzuki

Gore said the rest of the world looks to Canada for moral leadership, and that's why news of the plan was so "shocking."

Gore also praised one of Canada's best-known environmentalists, David Suzuki, for confronting Baird on Friday, the first day of the three-day Green Living Show.

Suzuki told Baird his plan was a disappointment and doesn't go far enough.

The government is creating the illusion of attacking the problem by talking about reducing intensity, but "the reality is it's really a cover for allowing industry to increase its pollution," he said.

The Conservative plan calls for Canadian reductions of current greenhouse gas emissions by 150 million tonnes by 2020. Most industries will have to reduce greenhouse gases by 18 per cent by 2010.

Canada produced about 775 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2004, a government website says. The Kyoto target is 563 million tonnes.

German weekly: Olmert believes 1,000 missiles will hurt Iran nukes; PMO denies

By Assaf Uni, Haaretz Correspondent and Reuters

The Prime Minister's Office yesterday denied that Ehud Olmert had told a German magazine Iran's disputed nuclear program could be severely hit by firing 1,000 cruise missiles during a 10-day attack. The weekly news magazine Focus said its reporter, Amir Taheri, asked Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an interview whether military action would be an option if Iran continued to defy the United Nations. It quoted Olmert as responding: "Nobody is ruling it out. "It is impossible perhaps to destroy the entire nuclear program but it would be possible to damage it in such a way that it would be set back years," Focus quoted Olmert as saying. "It would take 10 days and would involve the firing of 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles," it quoted him as saying.

Advertisement Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisen, said the prime minister had spoken to the author of the Focus article, but she said Olmert did not make the comments that were attributed to him. Eisen said the meeting was not an interview and was conducted for background purposes, on the understanding that it would not be used. However, Taheri said, "It was clear to all sides that this was an interview." He said he had not recorded the conversation, but had taken notes during and after the encounter. "Olmert's bureau recorded the meeting," he said. Taheri stood by his interview but clarified that the prime minister was not threatening Iran, but rather discussing a theoretical possibility only. Taheri said he was sorry about the media storm over the article, and he had instructed the magazine to remove the summary of the interview from its Internet site because "it was sensationalist and took Olmert's statements - which were mentioned in passing - out of context." Taheri said the Internet edition had published only part of Olmert's statements. Ulrich Schmidla, a foreign affairs editor at Focus magazine, said the interview would be published in full and with no changes, with Taheri's approval, in tomorrow's issue. Taheri, a freelance reporter, was a regular contributor to Focus, he added. Schmidla also said, "The reason we took the article off the Web site is because it focused unfairly on the military option, although Olmert had stressed the importance of negotiations." Alaeddin Broujerdi, head of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, dismissed Olmert's reported comments. "Naturally this bragging by Olmert is not something that can actually take place in practice," Broujerdi was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency. "If America and Israel ever made such a mistake, they know better than anyone else what the consequences would be." Focus quoted Olmert as saying UN sanctions should be given a chance to work before military action was considered. "We must give the (UN) process time to take effect," it quoted him as saying. "We have no intention of attacking Iran at the moment." Olmert was also quoted as saying he doubted whether Iran's nuclear program was as far advanced as Tehran said. "I don't think that Iran is about to cross the nuclear technology threshold as its leaders claim," he was quoted as saying. "We still have time to stop them." Taheri, an Iranian exile living in Europe, is known as a harsh critic of the regime in Tehran. Last year the Canadian National Post had to publish a retraction of a mistake based on an article by Taheri stating that the Iranian Parliament had passed a law requiring Jews to wear a yellow star.