10/06/04

TOP STORIES

Iraq Chief Gives A Sobering View About Security
(New York Times, October 6, 20041)
In his first speech before the interim Iraqi National Assembly, Prime
Minister Ayad Allawi gave a sobering account of the threat posed by the
insurgency, saying that the country's instability is a "source of worry for
many people" and that the guerrillas represent "a challenge to our will."

Raids Focus On Insurgents South Of Baghdad
U.S. Forces Take Strategic Bridge As Major Operation With Iraqi Troops
Begins
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 18)
U.S. and Iraqi forces fanned out across a vast region south of Baghdad in
what U.S. commanders described as a major operation to regain control of
lawless areas where insurgents routinely use supply routes to bring weapons
and fighters into the capital. More than 3,000 troops will target dozens of
insurgents in raids extending west of the Euphrates River,

Report Discounts Iraqi Arms Threat
U.S. Inspector Says Hussein Lacked Means
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 1)
The government's most definitive account of Iraq's arms programs, to be
released today, will show that Saddam Hussein posed a diminishing threat at
the time the United States invaded and did not possess, or have concrete
plans to develop, nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. U.S. officials
said that the 1,000-page report by Charles A. Duelfer, the chief U.S.
weapons inspector in Iraq, concluded that Hussein had the desire but not the
means to produce unconventional weapons

Breaking Their Silence
(Los Angeles Times, October 6, 20041)
Families of U.S. troops have long adhered to a clan code that prohibits
speaking out against a war. Now some are going public over Iraq.

House GOP Brings Up Draft In Order To Knock It Down
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 1)
Rumors of reinstating the military draft, which have flourished for months
in panicky e-mails, online chat rooms, college dorms and student newspapers,
suddenly dominated the House floor in one of the strangest parliamentary
maneuvers in memory. With even its sponsor voting against it, a bill to
require young adults to perform military or civil service failed, 402 to 2.
The vote put an end to the legislation, but Democrats and Republicans
signaled they will continue to accuse each other of contemplating a revival
of conscription, at least through the presidential campaign's final month,
and probably as long as U.S. troops are in Iraq.

Battle Against Boot-Camp Virus Gets Fast Track
(Seattle Times, October 6, 2004, Pg. 1)
The Defense Department is speeding up development of a vaccine to thwart a
virus striking 1 in 10 recruits, Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant
secretary of defense for health affairs, said. Winkenwerder, responding to a
Seattle Times story detailing how a vaccine had been abandoned in 1996
because it was considered too expensive, said he will push to distribute a
new oral vaccine by 2006, up to three years earlier than expected, calling
the program his "top priority."

CORRECTIONS

Corrections
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 2)
An Oct. 5 article misstated the date of a speech at DePauw University by L.
Paul Bremer, former administrator of the U.S.-led occupation in Iraq. He
spoke Sept. 16, not Sept. 17.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

Rumsfeld Says He Was Misunderstood On Iraq-Al Qaeda
(New York Times on the Web, October 5, 2004)
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he was misunderstood when he stated
hours earlier that he knew of no "strong, hard evidence" linking Saddam
Hussein's Iraq and Al Qaeda. "I have acknowledged since September 2002 that
there were ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq," Rumsfeld said in a statement
issued following remarks he made to the Council on Foreign Relations in New
York on Monday.

Policy Analyst Is Said To Have Rejected Plea Deal
(Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2004)
A Pentagon analyst being investigated for helping pass secrets to Israel has
stopped cooperating with authorities and retained a new lawyer to fight
possible espionage charges, sources familiar with the case said. The
analyst, Larry Franklin, had been a key witness in a continuing FBI
investigation looking into whether classified intelligence was passed to
Israel by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential
Washington lobbying firm.

IRAQ

Bremer Critique On Iraq Raises Political Furor
(New York Times, October 6, 2004)
Assertions by Paul Bremer, the former top American administrator in Iraq,
that President Bush had not sent enough troops to secure the country put the
White House on the defensive on Iraq policy and prompted Sen. John Kerry to
expand his assault on Bush as commander in chief. At the Pentagon, officials
said that Bremer, while interested in the issue of security, had no
authority over troop levels, which was solely the purview of military
commanders.

Bombings Spur Clashes; Allawi Notes Challenges
(Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2004)
A string of bombings set off clashes between U.S. troops and gunmen in Al
Anbar province, west of Baghdad, and in the northern city of Mosul. At least
five American soldiers were wounded.

U.S. Sees Samarra As A Model Operation
(Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2004)
Claiming success in Samarra, which fell in less than a day with moderate
damage and relatively light casualties, U.S. officials say the approach
could become the model for crushing the Iraqi insurgency in other so-called
no-go zones. The blueprint involves invading with a massive show of force,
relying heavily on Iraqi troops, attempting to win over the local population
with swift reconstruction aid and maintaining a U.S. presence after the
fighting stops.

France Was Ready To Send Troops To Iraq, Book Says
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 18)
French officials were prepared to provide as many as 15,000 troops for an
invasion of Iraq before relations soured between the Bush administration and
Paris over the timing of an attack, according to a new book published in
France this week. The book, "Chirac Contre Bush: L'Autre Guerre" ("Chirac
vs. Bush: The Other War") said French President Jacques Chirac decided that
the Americans were pushing too fast to short-circuit inspections by U.N.
weapons inspectors.

Funds To Rebuild Iraq Are Drifting Away From Target
State Department To Rethink U.S. Effort
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 18)
As little as 27 cents of every dollar spent on Iraq's reconstruction has
actually filtered down to projects benefiting Iraqis, a statistic that is
prompting the State Department to fundamentally rethink the Bush
administration's troubled reconstruction effort. Between soaring security
costs, corruption and mismanagement, contractors' profits, and U.S.
governmental costs, reconstruction funding is being drained away, leaving
little left to improve the lives of Iraqis, according to an analysis by the
nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Iraqi Indicted For Proposal To Open Talks With Israel
(New York Times, October 6, 2004)
A court of Iraq's interim government has brought criminal charges against a
prominent politician for attending an antiterrorism conference in Israel and
publicly suggesting that Iraq should open talks with Tel Aviv. The
indictment and arrest warrant, based on a 1969 law promulgated by the Baath
Party that bars Iraqis from having contacts with enemy states, are likely to
anger Washington, which has sponsored Iraq's new courts and is a close ally
of Israel.

A New C.I.A. Report Casts Doubt On A Key Terrorist's Tie To Iraq
(New York Times, October 6, 2004)
A reassessment by the CIA has cast doubt on a central piece of evidence used
by the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq to draw links between
Saddam Hussein's government and Al Qaeda's terrorist network, government
officials said. The report, sent to policy makers in August, says it is now
not clear whether Hussein's government harbored members of a group led by
the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which was the primary basis
for the administration's prewar assertions connecting Iraq to Al Qaeda.

Allies 'Resisted' Stopping Oil Ploy
U.S. Tried To Fix Oil-Food Misuse
(Washington Times, October 6, 2004, Pg. 1)
The governments of France, Russia, China and Syria blocked U.S. efforts
within the United Nations to stop Saddam Hussein from misusing the
oil-for-food program, a State Department official told Congress. "We began
pushing for a system to bring this under control," Patrick F. Kennedy, a
representative to the United Nations for management and reform, told a House
panel. "It was resisted by other nations. We were challenged."

U.N. Oil-For-Food Program Chief Got Lucrative Oil Rights, Iraq Says
(Wall Street Journal, October 6, 2004, Pg. 1)
A confidential Iraqi government report alleges that the head of the United
Nation's oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, received rights from Saddam
Hussein's regime to acquire 13.3 million barrels of oil over a five-year
period. The rights were valued at an estimated $1.2 million, according to
the report.

Najaf Accepts Price Of Stability
(Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2004)
More than a month after a U.S.-led offensive against the militia of Iraqi
cleric Muqtada Sadr, the historic core of the holy city of Najaf remains a
sealed-off zone of devastation and rubble.
Residents are relieved by the militants' departure but bemoan damage and
lost business after the deadly battle. The United States is aiding the
rebuilding effort.

Iraqi Airways Flies Again, With One Jet
(New York Times, October 6, 2004)
After lying all but dormant during 14 years of sanctions and still reeling
from the damage it has suffered in the invasion, Iraq's national airline,
Iraqi Airways, has made a humble reappearance on the commercial aviation
scene with a single, 116-seat Boeing 737-200 flying to two nearby Middle
East capitals, Damascus and Amman.

Zarqawi Gains Support In Iraq As Hostility To U.S. Rises
(Philadelphia Inquirer, October 6, 2004)
Once reviled as the man who brought beheadings to Iraq, Jordanian-born Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi is gaining support among Iraqis who are outraged over the
trail of razed neighborhoods and dead civilians left by the U.S. military's
anti-insurgent offensives this month.

Experts Sound Alarm Over Risks From 500 Sunken Ships Off Iraq
(London Financial Times, October 6, 2004)
As many as 500 sunken ships lie in Persian Gulf waters around Iraq, posing a
serious environmental risk and hampering access to its ports, the United
Nations said. Most of the wrecks date from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and the
first Gulf war in 1991, although the United Nations says there are some from
the most recent conflict. Their removal is seen as crucial to any
refurbishment of the ports of Umm Qasr and Al Zubayr.

CONGRESS

House Moves To Protect G.I.'s On Finances
(New York Times, October 6, 2004)
On a broadly bipartisan vote, the House approved a measure aimed at
preventing marketing practices that have exposed military personnel,
especially young recruits and junior officers, to high-pressure or
misleading sales pitches for financial products that may not fit their
financial needs. The bill would abolish an archaic form of mutual fund sold
almost exclusively to military personnel. Known as contractual plans, the
funds impose sales fees that eat up half of an investor's contributions in
the first year.

House Panel Expands Iraq Oil Inquiry To Postwar Period
(New York Times, October 6, 2004)
A House subcommittee investigating the United Nations oil-for-food program
expanded its inquiry to the Bush administration's postwar stewardship of
Iraq's oil money. The move came after subcommittee Democrats staged a
surprise revolt at a hearing on accusations of corruption and mismanagement
in the $67 billion program.

Intelligence Bills Lack Details
Congress Leaves Practical Matters Aside
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 25)
While the House and Senate push forward with their differing approaches to
restructure the U.S. intelligence community and put it under a new national
intelligence director, their proposals do not deal with more practical
issues, such as who will brief the president each morning about current
foreign and domestic intelligence analyses and clandestine operations.

Defense Authorization Conferees Nearing An Agreement
(National Journal's CongressDaily, October 5, 2004)
House and Senate conferees continued to trade proposals this week on the
fiscal 2005 defense authorization conference report and are expected to file
an agreement by Friday, according to aides. Conferees are considering a
compromise on a House proposal to delay by two years the upcoming round of
military base closures.

POLITICS

Kerry Says Franco-German Troops Unlikely
Cites Bremer Remarks To Hit Bush On War
(Washington Times, October 6, 2004, Pg. 1)
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry conceded that he probably will
not be able to convince France and Germany to contribute troops to Iraq if
he is elected president. The Massachusetts senator has made broadening the
coalition trying to stabilize Iraq a centerpiece of his campaign, but at a
town hall meeting he said he knows other countries will not trade their
soldiers' lives for those of U.S. troops.

GUANTANAMO

Most At Guantanamo To Be Freed Or Sent Home, Officer Says
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 16)
Most of the alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban inmates at the U.S. military prison
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are likely to be freed or sent to their home
countries for further investigation because many pose little threat and are
not providing much valuable intelligence, the facility's deputy commander,
Army Brig. Gen. Martin Lucent, said. The remark appeared to conflict with
past comments by U.S. military commanders who have stressed the value of the
information obtained from the detainees and the danger many would pose if
released.

AFGHANISTAN

NATO Expects Rush Of Taliban Attacks In Afghanistan
(New York Times, October 6, 2004)
Gen. James L. Jones, NATO's top commander, said that allied forces were
girding for a surge of attacks by Taliban fighters and others in the last
days before Afghanistan's presidential elections on Saturday. NATO has
nearly doubled its security force in the north in recent weeks, to nearly
10,000 troops, sending a fresh battalion of Italian troops to the area
around Kabul, the capital, and a battalion of Spanish forces to
Mazar-i-Sharif.

ASIA/PACIFIC

U.S. To Slow Pullout Of Troops From S. Korea
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 24)
The United States has agreed to withdraw 12,500 troops from South Korea over
several years rather than pulling them all out by the end of next year, as
was initially planned, the Pentagon and South Korean officials said. South
Korea, whose military was scheduled to pick up the slack, had complained
that the massive withdrawal was being planned too quickly and that more time
was needed to take over missions run by U.S. forces.

Japan Plans To Press U.S. On Troops
Foreign Minister Seeking Reduction Of 'Burden' On Okinawa
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 24)
Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said that he would press his
country's case in Washington this week for reducing what he called "the
excessive burden" placed on Okinawa by the presence of U.S. troops. But he
said he would urge the Americans to leave adequate forces in Japan to
promote security in the region.

Japan's Troops Proceed In Iraq Without Shot Fired
(New York Times, October 6, 2004)
Whenever a Japanese military convoy leaves its base in southern Iraq, the
armored vehicles are so spotless that they appear to have just rolled out of
a Tokyo car showroom. Perhaps that is because of the Japanese troops'
attention to maintenance-or perhaps, as local Iraqis say, because of an
increasing tendency to stay inside the base as violence rises outside. Seven
months into Japan's first mission since the end of World War II into a
country with active fighting, its ground troops have succeeded in not firing
a single shot.

MIDEAST

Iran's Missiles Can Now Hit Europe, Ex-Official Says
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 21)
Iran has increased the range of its missiles to 1,250 miles, according to a
senior Iranian official, putting parts of Europe within reach for the first
time. The United States, which has accused Iran of secretly developing
nuclear weapons, expressed "serious concerns about Iran's missile programs."

EUROPE

Spain Cuts U.S. From National Day Parade
(International Herald Tribune, October 6, 2004)
U.S. troops are no longer welcome in Spain's national holiday parade now
that Washington and Madrid have fallen out over Iraq. Instead, French
soldiers have been invited to march in the Spanish capital on the big day.

ARMY

Mom Of Soldier Killed In Iraq Dies
(Arizona Daily Star, October 5, 2004)
Only days after learning her son had died fighting in Iraq, Karen
Unruh-Wahrer collapsed and died suddenly in her Tucson home. The fallen
soldier and his 45-year-old mother will be honored together at a visitation
this evening. Although the cause of Unruh-Wahrer's Saturday death has not
been released, friends say her family is blaming it on "a broken heart" over
losing her son, Army Spc. Robert Oliver Unruh, 25, to enemy fire near
Baghdad Sept. 25.

UNITED NATIONS

U.N. Panel To Frame Guidelines On Legality Of Pre-Emptive Strike
(Washington Times, October 6, 2004, Pg. 1)
Members of an international panel studying United Nations' operations say
the group hopes to lay down clear rules declaring when it is legal for a
nation to use pre-emptive military force in its own defense. The issue grows
out of the international controversy over the Bush administration's decision
to invade Iraq without a final U.N. Security Council resolution explicitly
authorizing the war, according to panel member Gareth Evans, a former
foreign minister of Australia.

BUSINESS

U.S. Expands Probe Of Boeing Deal
(Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2004)
The Justice Department has begun reviewing e-mail exchanges of three
high-ranking government officials in what could represent more fallout from
the controversial $23-billion Air Force plan to acquire aerial refueling
tankers from Boeing, sources said. Federal investigators are looking at the
possibility of conflict-of-interest violations by Air Force Secretary James
Roche, Air Force acquisition chief Marvin Sambur and Robin Cleveland,
associate director at the Office of Management and Budget, according to the
sources.

EADS Set To Make First Major US Buy
(London Financial Times, October 6, 2004)
EADS, the European aerospace and defense group, is poised to announce its
first major acquisition in the United States, paying up to $130 million for
Racal Defense, the measurement arm of Racal. Although there have been
concerns about foreign companies taking over sensitive American defense
technologies, the acquisition received approval from government officials in
the past few weeks, one source said.

OPINION

The Afghan Miracle
William Safire
(New York Times, October 6, 2004)
On election day in Afghanistan, too much world media coverage will focus on
pictures of violence at polling places, not on the big news: lines of
courageous Afghans patiently waiting to vote. Terrorist acts by die-hard
Taliban insurgents may be excitingly pictorial, but images of Muslims,
especially women, voting for the first time-and of candidates for office
literally taking their lives in their hands to campaign-are deemed not
sufficiently mesmerizing.

Beaten Afghan Brides
Nicholas D. Kristof
(New York Times, October 6, 2004)
It has been two years since President Bush declared that in Afghanistan,
"Today, women are free." But that's news to the inmates of the women's
detention center in Kabul. The entire jail is a kaleidoscope of woe. Many
inmates are women who refused arranged marriages and now face beatings or
even death at the hands of their own families.

Afghanistan's Drug Boom
Michele Alliot-Marie
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 27)
France's defense minister observes that Afghanistan is responsible for
three-quarters of the world's production of opium, impeding the country's
stabilization as the profits help fund activities by warlords and the
Taliban. "In Afghanistan as elsewhere, counterterrorism must be global, and
this encompasses the links between narcotics, money and terrorism. This is a
war that must be fought on all fronts, a war in which France will be
involved without reservation."

Voters Excluded In Iraq-And At Home
Harold Meyerson
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 27)
While U.S. troops are fighting and dying to bring the vote to Samarra, their
families may be struggling to hang on to the franchise at home. Our force in
Iraq is a fair cross-section of working-class America, with a heavy
representation of African Americans and Latinos. But in Florida, Ohio, New
Mexico and other battleground states Republican election officials are
working to reduce the number of black and Latino voters.

The World Has Lost Iraq's Oil
At The Most Inopportune Time
Youssef M. Ibrahim
(USA Today, October 6, 2004, Pg. 21)
The managing director of a political risk-assessment group writes that
Iraq's oil industry is a mess, crippled by sabotage, graft, theft and
mayhem. "Oil and politics are a flammable cocktail. That is exactly where we
are in Iraq. The real worry is that the virus may very well be moving next
door to other oil-producing countries at a time when, basically, the world
is running on empty.

From Terrorism To Tolerance
Jim Hoagland
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 27)
"Launching a war against Al Qaeda and other terrorism groups and their
supporters was necessary. Pursuing it in its present form will not be
sufficient, for President Bush or for President Kerry. The leadership in a
broader struggle must inexorably pass to Muslims who honor tolerance and
human dignity-and who are willing to place themselves at risk to defend
those values for all faiths and races."

The War On Terror Is NATO's New Focus
R. Nicholas Burns
(International Herald Tribune, October 6, 2004)
The U.S. ambassador to NATO writes that if NATO is to remain the world's
most effective military and political alliance, it must adapt its
fundamental strategy to the realities of the post- Sept. 11 world. This
means that NATO must be present on the front lines of the war on terrorism.
Its ongoing mission in Afghanistan, and now a new program to train Iraqi
security forces, shows NATO's to reach beyond its traditional area of
operations in Europe to those countries that are on the front lines of the
global war on terror.

EDITORIAL

Now They Tell Us
(Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2004)
This week's unexpected burst of candor on Iraq from Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer is handy at this point
mostly for "I told you so" score-settling. It can't undo Iraq's continued
violence and chaos. Unfortunately, some things are not much better late than
never.

The Spies Who Weren't
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg. 26)
During Over the past few months, three espionage or security-related cases
against military personnel at the Guantanamo naval base have fallen apart
and the charges dropped. The military should not be holding people for
months for mishandling information whose status as sensitive is unclear. And
it should not be accusing U.S. service personnel of betraying their country
without evidence that will eventually hold up in court.

The Viceroy's Apologia
L. Paul Bremer's Selective Iraq History
(Wall Street Journal, October 6, 2004, Pg. 18)
"Former viceroy L. Paul Bremer did 14 months of hard service in Iraq, so it
is a special shame to see that he is now squandering that legacy by blaming
others for what's gone wrong there. All the more so when he doesn't even
have the history right." Bremer is hardly helping the cause of victory now
by criticizing his former colleagues, especially in a way that obscures the
hard lessons we've learned in Iraq in the past 18 months.

Rangel's Class War
(Wall Street Journal, October 6, 2004, Pg. 18)
If Congressman Charles Rangel is serious about getting more rich kids into
the military, we have a suggestion: Prevail upon Harvard and other elite
schools to allow the Reserve Officer Training Corps back on campus. Harvard
kicked ROTC off campus during the Vietnam War, and students have to travel
across town to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to take military
classes. Making it easier for them to join the military would be a lot
easier on everyone than bringing back the draft.

Source: Defense News