Thursday, November 11, 2004
News Home - Help
U.S. Troops Pound Insurgents in Mosul
11 minutes ago
By EDWARD HARRIS, Associated Press Writer
FALLUJAH, Iraq (news - web sites) — U.S. troops pounded insurgents in Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, after guerrillas attacked police stations and bridges in an apparent attempt to relieve pressure on Fallujah, where American forces continued their assault on the rebel stronghold.
AP Photo
AP Photo
Slideshow: Iraq
Insurgents Try to Flee Encircled Fallujah(AP Video)
Latest headlines:
·
U.S. Troops Pound Insurgents in Mosul AP - 11 minutes ago
·
Blair, Bush Meet to Discuss Mideast Peace AP - 22 minutes ago
·
Iraq Group Says Kidnaps American Man -Jazeera TV Reuters - 29 minutes ago
Special Coverage
Insurgents Thursday tried to break through the U.S. cordon surrounding Fallujah, where an estimated 600 insurgents, 18 U.S. troops and five Iraqi soldiers have been killed in the four-day assault, the U.S. military said. At least 178 Americans and 34 Iraqi soldiers have been wounded.
Smoke rose over Mosul on Thursday as U.S. warplanes streaked overhead. City officials warned residents to stay away from the five major bridges. Militants brandishing rocket-propelled grenades stood in front of a hospital.
Saadi Ahmed, a senior member of the pro-American Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, said nine police stations were attacked and that "Iraqi police turned some stations over to the terrorists."
"The internal security forces ... are a failure and are ineffective because some of them are cooperating with the terrorists," Ahmed said.
A U.S. military spokeswoman, Capt. Angela Bowman, said it could take "some time until we fully secure" Mosul.
An Iraqi journalist in Fallujah reported seeing burned U.S. vehicles and bodies in the street, with more buried under the wreckage. He said two men trying to move a corpse were shot down by a sniper.
Two of the three small clinics in the city have been bombed, and in one case, medical staff and patients were killed, he said. A U.S. tank was positioned beside the third clinic, and residents were afraid to go there, he said.
"People are afraid of even looking out the window because of snipers," he said, asking that he not be named for his own safety. "The Americans are shooting anything that moves."
Many of Fallujah's 200,000 to 300,000 residents fled the city before the assault. It is impossible to determine how many civilians who were not actively fighting the Americans or assisting the insurgents may have been killed.
Commanders said 1,200 to 3,000 fighters were believed in Fallujah before the offensive.
Elsewhere, a series of attacks throughout central Iraq underscored the nation's perilous security. In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded Thursday moments after a U.S. patrol passed, killing 17 bystanders and wounding 30. There were no U.S. casualties.
A car bomb exploded in Kirkuk as the governor's convoy was passing, killing a bystander and wounding 14 people. Three Iraqis were killed in a shootout between U.S. troops and insurgents in Samarra. Two car bombs injured eight people in Hillah.
Al-Jazeera television aired a videotape showing what the station said was an American contractor of Lebanese origin held hostage in Iraq. The middle-aged man carried a U.S. passport and an identification card in the name of Dean Sadek. Al-Jazeera did not air any audio but quoted Sadek as saying all businesses should stop cooperating with U.S. authorities.
Most of the insurgents still fighting in Fallujah are believed to have fallen back to southern districts ahead of the advancing U.S. and Iraqi forces, although fierce clashes were reported in the west of the city around the public market.
American officers said the majority of the insurgent mortar and machine-gun fire Thursday was directed at U.S. military units forming a cordon around the city to prevent guerrillas from slipping away.
Officers said that suggested the insurgents were trying to break out of Fallujah rather than defend it.
Meanwhile, two Marine Super Cobra attack helicopters were hit by ground fire and forced to land in separate incidents near Fallujah, the military said. The four pilots were rescued, though one suffered slight injuries.
At a U.S. camp outside Fallujah, Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division, said the operation was running "ahead of schedule," but he would not predict how many days of fighting lay ahead.
He said troops had found an arms cache in "almost every single mosque in Fallujah."
Natonski also said he had visited a "slaughterhouse" in the northern Jolan neighborhood where hostages were held and possibly killed by militants. He described a small room with no windows and just one door. He said he saw two thin mattresses, straw mats covered in blood and a wheelchair that apparently was used to transport captives.
U.S. officials believe the al-Qaida-linked terror movement of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who claimed responsibility for many of the kidnappings and beheadings of foreign hostages, used Fallujah as a base. They said they believe al-Zarqawi may have slipped away before the offensive.
In April, Fallujah militants fought Marines to a standstill during a three-week siege, which the Bush administration called off amid public criticism over civilian casualties.
The current offensive was begun so the government can hold national elections in January, although Sunni clerics have called a boycott to protest the Fallujah operation.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, said Thursday that "hundreds and hundreds of insurgents" have been killed and captured. He called the Fallujah offensive "very, very successful" but said it would not spell the end of the insurgency.
"If anybody thinks that Fallujah is going to be the end of the insurgency in Iraq, that was never the objective, never our intention, and even never our hope," Myers told NBC.
___
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Jim Krane near Fallujah; and Tini Tran, Sameer N. Yacoub, Mariam Fam, Sabah Jerges, Katarina Kratovac and Maggie Michael in Baghdad.
Story Tools
Email Story
Post/Read Msgs
Formatted Story
Ratings: Would you recommend this story?
Not at all 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 Highly
Copyright © 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2004 Yahoo! Inc. Ad Feedback
today's papersMourning and MorningBy Eric UmanskyPosted Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004, at 1:24 AM PT
Everybody leads with the death of Yasser Arafat, which the French announced early this morning. His body will be flown to Cairo for a quick state funeral. Then, in a compromise with Israel, he will be buried in Ramallah on the grounds of the Muqtada, the former British fortress where Arafat had been holed up until recently.
The Washington Post is clearest about the continuing mystery of the past few weeks: "Doctors never said publicly what caused the illness that led to his death."
Obits are here, here, and here.
As dictated by Palestinian law, there will be elections in 60 days to choose a new president. Former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, considered a reformer and U.S. favorite, is expected to run as the candidate of what was Arafat's party, Fatah. Hamas might also field a man. The Los Angeles Times has a profile on Abbas, saying he could prove to be a hardnosed. "There is not going to be a major shift from current Palestinian policies right away," said one Palestinian analyst. If the U.S. and Israel "expect this, then they're going to ruin any possibility."
Meanwhile, the presidency Arafat held is only supposed to be a ceremonial position. And as the New York Times puts it, "there is bound to be a struggle for the Palestinian leadership over time."
As the Post Glenn Kessler details, the White House is making noise about quickly pushing toward peace.
The NYT checks in on another one of Arafat's legacies: The billons of dollars in funds he appears to have stashed away in various bank accounts. He didn't spend it on himself, but rather to exercise power and a dollop to keep his wife living large. "Some of it will be buried with him," said an Israeli official. "No one knows it all, except Arafat."
Everybody fronts President Bush's nomination of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales for attorney general. Gonzales, whose parents emigrated from Mexico, has long been close with Bush, and as the Post puts it, is "known less for ideology than for loyalty." Conservatives have always been skeptical of him because of that, and apparently are relieved since the move suggests he won't be heading to the Supremes soon. Gonzales was also a key player in the White House's decision to chuck out international law with regard to the treatment of al-Qaida suspects.
In a piece inside the Post, Dana Milbank suggests Gonzales is something of a closet liberal, pointing to hints of support for affirmative action and abortion rights. As for his connections to the detainee decisions, Milbank says those were less his than "those of underlings." A Post editorial comes to the opposite conclusion: "The outgoing attorney general was sometimes outflanked on the right by the man the president has chosen to replace him." And a LAT editorial considers Gonzales' support of increasing secrecy as well as the detainee rules and concludes, "GONZALES IS A DISASTROUS CHOICE."
Most of the papers guess that Gonzales will fly through confirmation hearings. The NYT at first says there might be a fight but farther down notes that Democrats said they "want to save their heavy ammunition" for the Supreme Court nomination.
Everybody fronts Fallujah, which the military says is now 70 percent in its control. Most the papers highlight that. But the NYT says the advance "has largely stopped" and the military only controls about half the city. Even that is playing with words, said the top Iraqi commander. "Fighting in cities cannot be counted like this," he told the Post. "We fully control the northern half of Fallujah now, and it has been cleared. But if you ask is it fully cleared, I say no, we still have some resistance pockets."
There were attacks across Iraq, killing about 30 people, including two GIs and two foreign contractors. Three relatives of interim Prime Minister Allawi were also kidnapped. A car bomb killed 10 in Baghdad. The NYT mentions that the CIA confirmed a convoy near the Baghdad airport carrying top weapons inspector Charlie Duelfer was attacked; "it was not known" if he was wounded. And the Post says in Baghdad, "large bands of armed men" fought with Iraqi soldiers.
The LAT notices the lack of Arab outrage about the Fallujah offensive. "The fact that there are no accounts of casualties among civilians is minimizing the reaction of Arabs and the Muslim world," said one Lebanese journalist. He added that there is "a sort of anger towards" the foreign fighters who imposed themselves on the town and "are defying the people of Fallujah." The papers go inside with newly released government documents suggesting—as long suspected—that Halliburton wasn't the one responsible for inflated fuel imports to Iraq. Rather, the company was forced, by the State Department among others, to use an overpriced subcontractor that had connections to the Kuwaiti royal family. Apparently it meant to, ahem, encourage Kuwaiti support for the war effort.
A piece inside the Post looks at the theories floating around that Kerry actually won the election. The paper's conclusion: Move on to the next stage—there's no evidence of election-flipping fraud. Eric Umansky writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@hotmail.com.Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2109489/
Everybody leads with the death of Yasser Arafat, which the French announced early this morning. His body will be flown to Cairo for a quick state funeral. Then, in a compromise with Israel, he will be buried in Ramallah on the grounds of the Muqtada, the former British fortress where Arafat had been holed up until recently.
The Washington Post is clearest about the continuing mystery of the past few weeks: "Doctors never said publicly what caused the illness that led to his death."
Obits are here, here, and here.
As dictated by Palestinian law, there will be elections in 60 days to choose a new president. Former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, considered a reformer and U.S. favorite, is expected to run as the candidate of what was Arafat's party, Fatah. Hamas might also field a man. The Los Angeles Times has a profile on Abbas, saying he could prove to be a hardnosed. "There is not going to be a major shift from current Palestinian policies right away," said one Palestinian analyst. If the U.S. and Israel "expect this, then they're going to ruin any possibility."
Meanwhile, the presidency Arafat held is only supposed to be a ceremonial position. And as the New York Times puts it, "there is bound to be a struggle for the Palestinian leadership over time."
As the Post Glenn Kessler details, the White House is making noise about quickly pushing toward peace.
The NYT checks in on another one of Arafat's legacies: The billons of dollars in funds he appears to have stashed away in various bank accounts. He didn't spend it on himself, but rather to exercise power and a dollop to keep his wife living large. "Some of it will be buried with him," said an Israeli official. "No one knows it all, except Arafat."
Everybody fronts President Bush's nomination of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales for attorney general. Gonzales, whose parents emigrated from Mexico, has long been close with Bush, and as the Post puts it, is "known less for ideology than for loyalty." Conservatives have always been skeptical of him because of that, and apparently are relieved since the move suggests he won't be heading to the Supremes soon. Gonzales was also a key player in the White House's decision to chuck out international law with regard to the treatment of al-Qaida suspects.
In a piece inside the Post, Dana Milbank suggests Gonzales is something of a closet liberal, pointing to hints of support for affirmative action and abortion rights. As for his connections to the detainee decisions, Milbank says those were less his than "those of underlings." A Post editorial comes to the opposite conclusion: "The outgoing attorney general was sometimes outflanked on the right by the man the president has chosen to replace him." And a LAT editorial considers Gonzales' support of increasing secrecy as well as the detainee rules and concludes, "GONZALES IS A DISASTROUS CHOICE."
Most of the papers guess that Gonzales will fly through confirmation hearings. The NYT at first says there might be a fight but farther down notes that Democrats said they "want to save their heavy ammunition" for the Supreme Court nomination.
Everybody fronts Fallujah, which the military says is now 70 percent in its control. Most the papers highlight that. But the NYT says the advance "has largely stopped" and the military only controls about half the city. Even that is playing with words, said the top Iraqi commander. "Fighting in cities cannot be counted like this," he told the Post. "We fully control the northern half of Fallujah now, and it has been cleared. But if you ask is it fully cleared, I say no, we still have some resistance pockets."
There were attacks across Iraq, killing about 30 people, including two GIs and two foreign contractors. Three relatives of interim Prime Minister Allawi were also kidnapped. A car bomb killed 10 in Baghdad. The NYT mentions that the CIA confirmed a convoy near the Baghdad airport carrying top weapons inspector Charlie Duelfer was attacked; "it was not known" if he was wounded. And the Post says in Baghdad, "large bands of armed men" fought with Iraqi soldiers.
The LAT notices the lack of Arab outrage about the Fallujah offensive. "The fact that there are no accounts of casualties among civilians is minimizing the reaction of Arabs and the Muslim world," said one Lebanese journalist. He added that there is "a sort of anger towards" the foreign fighters who imposed themselves on the town and "are defying the people of Fallujah." The papers go inside with newly released government documents suggesting—as long suspected—that Halliburton wasn't the one responsible for inflated fuel imports to Iraq. Rather, the company was forced, by the State Department among others, to use an overpriced subcontractor that had connections to the Kuwaiti royal family. Apparently it meant to, ahem, encourage Kuwaiti support for the war effort.
A piece inside the Post looks at the theories floating around that Kerry actually won the election. The paper's conclusion: Move on to the next stage—there's no evidence of election-flipping fraud. Eric Umansky writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@hotmail.com.Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2109489/
November 12, 2004
Choice of Gonzales May Blaze a Trail for the High CourtBy ELISABETH BUMILLER and NEIL A. LEWIS
ASHINGTON, Nov. 11 - Republicans close to the White House said on Thursday that the choice of Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general was part of a political strategy to bolster Mr. Gonzales's credentials with conservatives and position him for a possible Supreme Court appointment.
These Republicans said Mr. Gonzales had been widely viewed as one of President Bush's top choices for the court. But by first sending him to the Justice Department, they said, Mr. Bush could then nominate a conservative favored by his political base to fill the first vacancy that arises.
For Mr. Gonzales, tenure as attorney general would allow him to demonstrate his reliability to conservative leaders, many of whom say they are unsure of his views on issues like abortion and affirmative action, Republicans said. One Republican said Mr. Gonzales's nomination hearings in Congress would also "get out of the way'' the debate over legal memorandums that Mr. Gonzales supervised as White House counsel. Civil rights groups say memorandums about the treatment of captured terrorism suspects appeared to endorse the torture of some prisoners and opened the door to abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The strategy, which Republicans said was in large part the work of Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, would clear the way for Mr. Bush to make his first nomination to the Supreme Court a trusted conservative, thus showing gratitude to his political base for the large role they played in giving him a second term.
"It's a thank you to the right for the election,'' said one Republican adviser to the White House. "And they think they need to strike now in the post-election glow.''
The theory, the Republican said, is that Mr. Bush will be at the apex of his power at the beginning of the second term, and in a strong position to battle Democrats in any Supreme Court confirmation fight. "So you do the toughest nominee first,'' the Republican said.
Presidents over the years have parked future candidates for the Supreme Court in other positions in order to bolster their résumés and improve their chances. Most often, however, potential nominees are first parked on federal appeals courts, the level just below the Supreme Court, not as attorneys general.
Friends of Mr. Gonzales also say that if he is not put up later for the Supreme Court, the Justice Department is hardly a consolation prize, given that he has long desired to become the nation's first Hispanic attorney general. Even so, the post has also proved to be a perilous one and has at times harmed careers, as in the case of Janet Reno's difficult experiences with the Branch Davidian conflagration in Waco, Tex., and her return of a young boy in Florida, Elián González, to relatives in Cuba.
Mr. Gonzales's appointment, Republicans said, reflected Mr. Bush's speed in moving to announce major personnel changes for his second term. They said the president's goal was to have all new appointments in place before Thanksgiving so that he can move quickly on his agenda after the inauguration in January.
For now, however, some of the most prominent members of the administration are remaining in place. Republicans outside the administration as well as White House officials said Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, would stay in her job, at least for now, although she is widely said to be interested in succeeding Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary. But Mr. Rumsfeld, Republicans said, wants to stay for the immediate future, if only to put the Abu Ghraib prison scandal well behind him.
There is also a consensus emerging in Republican and diplomatic circles that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will stay on into 2005 because of the international crises coming to a head - the difficulty of holding Iraqi elections scheduled for late January, impending showdowns with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs and negotiations in the Middle East after the death of Yasir Arafat. The United States may be more involved in working toward a settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians after Mr. Arafat's death, and Mr. Powell is thought to be eager to put his mark on the dealings, Republicans said.
If and when Mr. Powell does step down, Ms. Rice is being mentioned as a possible successor to him as well. If Ms. Rice does move to the State Department, her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, is a leading candidate to become national security adviser.
Mr. Gonzales's impending move to the Justice Department means that he is no longer the front-runner for the first vacancy on the Supreme Court, which may become open because of the illness of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 80, who has thyroid cancer. There has been no indication by the chief justice's office of when, or whether, he will return to the bench.
Conservatives said on Thursday that a leading candidate for the first nomination to the Supreme Court was Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who sits on the federal appeals court in Richmond. He was a protégé of the late Justice Lewis F. Powell, who was widely admired. Although Judge Wilkinson is opposed to abortion, he may be palatable to some Democrats because of his strong environmental and First Amendment record.
Another leading candidate is Judge J. Michael Luttig, 50, who sits on the same court as Judge Wilkinson. Judge Luttig's relative youth would also make him attractive to Republicans, who tend to prefer younger candidates who will have longer careers and thus more influence.
Other possible nominees include Judge Edith H. Jones, a federal appeals court judge, and Larry D. Thompson, a former deputy attorney general who is now the general counsel of Pepsico in Purchase, N.Y.
Several Republicans said no decision had been made on filling Mr. Gonzales's position as White House counsel, although Brett M. Kavanaugh, a former associate counsel who has since been promoted to staff secretary to the president, is a strong candidate. Two officials said Mr. Kavanaugh had won Mr. Bush's confidence. "The president thinks he's great,'' said one Republican familiar with the White House operations. "He trusts him and really likes having him around to rely on.''
If chosen as White House counsel, Mr. Kavanaugh would not have to undergo a Senate confirmation. Earlier this year, he was nominated for a seat on the federal appeals court based in Washington and was batted around by Democrats in a confirmation hearing. Mr. Kavanaugh was criticized by Democrats for playing a principal role in the White House effort to nominate prominent conservatives to the nation's appeals courts and for his role in the Whitewater investigation of President Bill Clinton.
Other candidates include David Leach, the deputy White House counsel, and Harriet Miers, the deputy chief of staff.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections RSS Help Back to Top
News Home - Help
Arafat's Body Arrives in Cairo for Funeral
52 minutes ago
By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD, Associated Press Writer
CAIRO, Egypt - Egypt prepared Thursday for a strictly controlled military funeral for Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) where dignitaries from around the world will pay their respects, but where the people — among whom Arafat was by far more popular — will be mostly shut out.
AP Photo
Reuters Photo
Slideshow: Yasser Arafat Dies at 75
The planned 25-minute ceremony at a military club in a Cairo suburb reflects concern for security at an event expected to draw dozens of statesmen and foreign ministers. But Egypt also apparently sought to avoid an outpouring of public emotion that might either get out of control or show that the late Palestinian leader enjoyed more support than other Arab leaders.
Arafat's coffin, flown from a Paris military base, arrived in Cairo late Thursday. Authorities mounted a maximum security operation around the airport, increasing police guards and stationing observers on tall buildings.
A military honor guard carried Arafat's coffin, walking in formation from the plane to a hearse.
Suzanne Mubarak, wife of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites), hugged Arafat's widow, Suha, after she alighted. Egypt's foreign minister was also there.
Arafat's coffin was to be taken to the nearby Galaa Club, a compound that includes a hospital, mosque and social club for military officers. It was to be held overnight in the hospital and was to go to a mosque at the club on Friday morning for the funeral.
The service originally was planned for a mosque on the grounds of Cairo's international airport, but was switched to the military club for logistical reasons.
Egypt stepped in to host the service for Arafat, who died early Thursday, because it would be politically difficult for Arab leaders to travel to the Israeli-controlled Palestinian territories for a ceremony.
Security forces also were clustered under downtown overpasses near the square, and a large photograph of Mubarak beneath one bridge — once vandalized when a demonstration got out of hand — had been taken down.
The U.S. Embassy in Cairo warned Americans to avoid areas where spontaneous protests might occur, including downtown Tahrir Square.
The club where the funeral will be held takes its name from the British military withdrawal from Egypt in 1953 — "galaa" is the Arabic word for evacuation — and it is located in the district of Heliopolis, where Mubarak lives.
At the funeral, special prayers for the dead will be led by Egypt's top Muslim cleric, the Grand Sheik of Al-Azhar Mohammed Sayed Tantawi.
"I would like to draw your attention to something that is very important: It's an official military funeral and not open to the public," Col. Ahmed Assem of the Interior Ministry told viewers of Egypt's state-run television.
After the funeral, Arafat's coffin will be taken to the Almaza military base near the club and then flown to Ramallah in the West Bank, Gen. Abdel Fattah Badran said. Arafat will be buried there before sunset Friday.
The short drive from the club to the base is likely to be the public's only opportunity to see Arafat's coffin pass. Security officials said Arafat's body would be borne by a horse-drawn carriage for some of the way.
If Arafat's body were to be brought into the center of Cairo, it might draw the biggest funeral crowd since the death of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1970.
That would involve a security risk, and also a prestige risk that few Arab leaders are willing to take, said Walid Kazziha, a politics professor at the American University in Cairo.
"Other Arab leaders, would they like to see Arafat commanding this much support, even in death?" Kazziha asked.
The heads of state expected to attend include those of Jordan, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt, South Africa, Indonesia and Lebanon. Numerous foreign ministers, including Jack Straw of Britain, Michel Barnier of France and Joschka Fischer of Germany, have said they will attend, as has European Union (news - web sites) foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Assistant Secretary of State William Burns will represent the United States. The Israeli Embassy in Cairo said it would not be represented.
Story Tools
Email Story
Post/Read Msgs
Formatted Story
Ratings: Would you recommend this story?
Not at all 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 Highly
Copyright © 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
.Questions or CommentsPrivacy Policy -Terms of Service - Copyright Policy - Ad Feedback
