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Bush Defends Iraq Decisions in Canada
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By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
OTTAWA - President Bush (news - web sites) tried on Tuesday to repair U.S.-Canada relations strained by years of bickering over trade and Iraq (news - web sites), although he stood by policies that have irritated Canadians.
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He did promise Prime Minister Paul Martin to work toward easing a U.S. ban on Canadian beef.
Even as thousands of Canadian protesters thronged the streets to protest his visit, Bush brushed aside suggestions that his decisions had damaged U.S.-Canada ties. Asked about polls that show Canadian opposition to his policies runs high, Bush pointed to his own re-election this month as the survey that mattered.
"We just had a poll in our country when people decided that the foreign policy of the Bush administration ought to stay in place for four more years," Bush said at a joint news conference with Martin.
"I made some decisions, obviously, that some in Canada didn't agree with, like, for example, removing Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and enforcing the demands of the United Nations (news - web sites) Security Council," Bush said.
While he acknowledged no mistakes, Bush joked about his reception here.
"I want to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave, with all five fingers, for their hospitality," he said.
Indeed, Canadians for the most part lived up to their reputation for reserve as Bush made his way from the airport to downtown Ottawa. Most stood waving excitedly at Bush's enormous motorcade as it snaked down the road.
Many of Bush's opponents were polite. One of the first signs he saw read "Please Leave."
Others were more blunt. At lunchtime, a sign close to Bush's motorcade urged him to go home and depicted him riding atop a missile with a swastika on it.
The beef ban is a leading irritant in a relationship that has suffered during Bush's presidency, and the issue loomed large in Bush's first official trip to Canada.
In their private meetings, Martin vented "a great deal of frustration that the issue hadn't been resolved yet," Bush said.
"This has been studied to death," an exasperated Martin said of the Canadian beef ban, in place since May 2003.
The Bush administration has since opened its border to some Canadian beef, but live cattle remain prohibited. Canadian ranchers are desperate, estimating they have lost more than $2 billion.
"I believe that, as quickly as possible, young cows ought to be allowed to go across our border," Bush said. But, he said, "There's a bureaucracy involved. I readily concede we've got one."
The latest study rests with the White House's own Office of Management and Budget, and Bush said he had ordered the OMB to "expedite that (process) as quickly as possible."
Yet a resolution is months off. OMB has three months to study a rule that would allow into the United States boxed beef and live cattle younger than 30 months; the deadline for completion of the study is mid-February. Then Congress has two months to scrutinize the proposed rule, a senior administration official said.
Bush had a cool relationship with former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and the president canceled an official visit to Canada's capital in May 2003 after their disagreement over the Iraq invasion broke out into public view.
The trip to Ottawa opened a broader reconciliation tour he plans to continue in Europe early next year.
Martin, who succeeded Chretien as Liberal Party leader and has been in office less than a year, has sought to repair the damage. Bush embraced the opportunity for a fresh start with the United States' northern neighbor and its 32 million people.
The two leaders emphasized areas of agreement and cooperation, papering over their countries' contentious history about the Iraq war.
Canada has pledged more than $200 million in humanitarian aid and reconstruction money and has agreed to forgive more than $450 million in Iraqi debt, Bush said. Canadian officials said the two leaders discussed what role the country might play in Iraqi elections two months off. Canada is experienced in monitoring elections.
At a time when Canada is debating whether to participate in the new U.S. continental missile defense program, Bush told Martin the shield would protect much of North America, a senior Bush administration official said.
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Officials: Ridge Resigns Homeland Post
Email this StoryNov 30, 1:21 PM (ET)By KATHERINE PFLEGER SHRADER

(AP) Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge addresses the Republican Governors Association on Nov. 19,...Full Image
WASHINGTON (AP) - Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has informed the White House and department staff that he has resigned, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
In an e-mail circulated to senior Homeland Security officials, Ridge praised the department as "an extraordinary organization that each day contributes to keeping America safe and free." He also said he was privileged to work with the department's 180,000 employees "who go to work every day dedicated to making our company better and more secure."
A news conference has been set for 2:45 p.m.
In October 2001, Ridge became the nation's first White House homeland security adviser, leading a massive undertaking to rethink all aspects of security within the U.S. borders in the wake of the terror attacks of September 2001.
Congress subsequently passed legislation establishing the Homeland Security Department, merging 180,000 employees from 22 government agencies. Ridge became the department's first secretary in January 2003.
He has presided over six national "orange alerts" when the government boosted security out of concern that an attack may be coming. An attack in the United States never happened on his watch.
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November 30, 2004
U.S. Officials Say Iraq's Forces Founder Under Rebel AssaultsBy RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and JAMES GLANZ
OSUL, Iraq, Nov. 29 - Iraqi police and national guard forces, whose performance is crucial to securing January elections, are foundering in the face of coordinated efforts to kill and intimidate them and their families, say American officials in the provinces facing the most violent insurgency.
For months, Iraqi recruits for both forces have been the victims of assassinations and car bombs aimed at lines of applicants as well as police stations. On Monday morning, a suicide bomber rammed a car into a group of police officers waiting to collect their salaries west of Ramadi, killing 12 people, Interior Ministry officials said.
While Bush administration officials say that the training is progressing and that there have been instances in which the Iraqis have proved tactically useful and fought bravely, local American commanders and security officials say both Iraqi forces are riddled with problems.
In the most violent provinces, they say, the Iraqis are so intimidated that many are reluctant to show up and do not tell their families where they work; they have yet to receive adequate training or weapons, present a danger to American troops they fight alongside, and are unreliable because of corruption, desertion or infiltration.
Given the weak performance of Iraqi forces, any major withdrawal of American troops for at least a decade would invite chaos, a senior Interior Ministry official, whose name could not be used, said in an interview last week.
South of Baghdad, where American troops are still trying to drive out insurgents after the recent offensive in Falluja, American officers warn their own troops to be prepared to "duck and cover" to avoid stray shots fired by Iraqi recruits.
In the northern city of Mosul, almost the entire police force and large parts of several Iraqi National Guard battalions deserted during an insurgent uprising this month. Iraqi leaders had to use Guard battalions of Kurdish soldiers to secure the city, kindling ethnic tensions with Arabs. Police stations in western Mosul have perhaps several hundred officers in an area that is supposed to have several thousand.
For those brave enough to come to work, "right now, all they're doing is looking out the window and making sure the bad guys aren't coming to get them," said an American military official in Mosul, who did not want his name to be used.
In a telephone interview on Saturday, Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander overseeing training of the Iraqi security forces, acknowledged the shortcomings in the Iraqis' performance, particularly by the police in Mosul and in Anbar Province, which stretches west from Ramadi to the Syrian border.
But General Petraeus said Iraqi Army, National Guard and police commando units had done well in other places, including Falluja, Najaf, Kut, Hilla, Karbala and much of southern Iraq, where the security situation was not as dangerous.
Iraqi security forces at all levels need better officers to lead the units, he said. "It's all about leadership," he said. "Where you see that, they really do well."
American military and Iraqi government officials, he added, are taking steps to address the weaknesses. Police training courses are being toughened to "focus much more on survival in a very lethal environment," he said. The police are also being provided larger weapons and more secure police stations.
In addition, there will be greater efforts to ensure that the Iraqi police will be backed up by other Iraqi security forces and American troops. "You can't have them feeling that if they're surrounded, no one's coming to the rescue," he said.
There are some bright spots among individual battalions of the Iraqi National Guard troops and Iraqi commandos. When operating under the direct control and oversight of American forces, some have helped in raids and other missions and continue to be used when American commanders want to enter mosques and other culturally sensitive targets, as happened in Falluja.
But places like Mosul are a particular worry for American commanders, who so far have been unable to slow the insurgents' campaign of intimidation. In the past 11 days, the bodies of at least 69 Iraqis have been found around Mosul, some with notes attached condemning their work for the Iraqi forces or with their military identification cards placed atop their bodies.
Even where there have been apparent successes, there are complications. American officials in Mosul, for example, single out the 106th Iraqi National Guard Battalion as performing with professionalism. But in an interview, the battalion commander said half of his troops were Kurdish, not Arab.
American commanders praised the Iraqi commandos who took part in a battle to repel insurgents who attacked a police station here two weeks ago. But an American company commander who joined the fight, Capt. Bill Jacobsen, noted that of a force of slightly more than 100 commandos, 10 had been killed and 27 wounded.
Many of the young Iraqi troops feel they are marked men, even without combat. To prevent insurgents from discovering their identities, many lie to everyone, wives and family included, about their real jobs.
In an interview, one member of the Iraqi 36th Commando Battalion, an elite group trained by the American Special Forces, says he tells his wife that he is a fireman, offering her nothing more to explain weeks-long absences. Another commando says he tells his family that his business requires frequent travel to the Syrian border. Some commandos, from the south, say they tell family members their factory foreman in Baghdad will not let them come home.
"I don't tell anyone," said the Iraqi commando who tells his wife he is a firefighter. "Just my brother, and he doesn't tell anyone because they will attack me."
He also complained about equipment shortages. "These weapons are not enough," he lamented. "They didn't give us a pistol. These Kalashnikovs are old and not good for shooting. If we attack, we must have good guns and good weapons. Tell the American government you must give us good weapons."
The Iraqi 36th Battalion worked with American Special Forces to take control of Falluja General Hospital on the first night of the invasion there, encountering no resistance. They often accompany American Special Forces soldiers on raids in Baghdad and other cities.
In October, the commando battalion helped United States troops storm a large mosque in Samarra, where 4 insurgents were killed and 25 captured. A Special Forces sergeant who helped lead the raid said some of the Iraqis "didn't jump in right away, but urged on by the more senior guys, they did."
In the "triangle of death," the area south of Baghdad named for its lawlessness, the police have been the targets of constant attacks and are now absent from the streets entirely, even though Marine bases in the area give police training courses.
John Chapman, a deputy sheriff in Johnson County, Tex., who was hired through the private security firm DynCorp to consult with the marines here, was asked what would count as a success for the recruits in the training program. "Show up for work," Mr. Chapman said. "Anything besides show up on payday."
At a training base in Mahmudiya, Mr. Chapman led a drill for about 40 recruits, many of whom drifted away into the shade for a smoke or giggled during a drill. Marines shouted at the recruits to pay attention. Mr. Chapman pestered them about their slovenly appearance, to little avail.
"To say we're there right now would be misspoken," said Maj. Dan Whisnant, intelligence officer for the Second Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, which is involved in the training.
Marine officers here maintain that the police are improving. In the current military sweep, called Operation Plymouth Rock, an Iraqi SWAT team was given credit for a series of raids that rounded up numerous insurgent suspects.
But a different assessment was disclosed in a slide that one of those Marine officers presented at a daily briefing just as 150 new Iraqi police recruits were due to arrive by helicopter at an American base at 9 p.m., or in military parlance, 2100 hours:
"2100: Clown Car arrives," the slide said, referring to the helicopters. "2101: Be ready for negligent discharges," the entry continued, warning of accidental shots from the AK-47's carried by many of the recruits. "Recommend 'Duck & Cover,' " it concluded.
Lt. Col. Mark Smith, commanding officer of a Marine task force here, said the slide was a product of frustration among marines over the slow pace of training the police. "You just have to lower your expectations on the timetable on when they're going to get things done," he said.
There is still little police presence amid the devastation in post-invasion Falluja. Down the road, in Ramadi, an American commander said the police had proved useless. There, American troops with the First Battalion of the Army's 503d Infantry are briefed to be just as cautious in dealing with the Iraqi police as they are with anyone else.
The police "are clearly intimidated to the point where they don't want to come to work," said the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Justin Gubler.
He said the Iraqi National Guard, known as the I.N.G., has only a "little bit more training." They also have serious problems of loyalty and competence. Just a few months ago, he believes, the local National Guard force was complicit in the abduction and killing of its own battalion commander west of Falluja.
"That's what you get out of the I.N.G.," Colonel Gubler said. "They gave up their battalion commander, laid their weapons down, and 23 cars and trucks and massive amounts of ammunition went to Falluja. It's just pitiful."
Infiltration remains a problem. After the uprising, the Mosul police chief was quickly dismissed and was later arrested on suspicion of complicity with the insurgents.
When a captain in the Mosul police force, Abu Muhammad, was asked if the police had been penetrated by the mujahedeen, he took a long, deep breath.
"Yes, and this is the problem, and I do believe that they have contacts with senior policemen in Mosul," he said. "There is kind of cooperation between the two parties."
Richard A. Oppel Jr. reported from Mosul for this article and James Glanz from Baghdad. John F. Burns contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Eric Schmitt and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times also contributed.
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today's papersVictor Victorious By Eric UmanskyPosted Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2004, at 12:37 AM PT
The New York Times leads with a leaked Red Cross report concluding that U.S. tactics at Gitmo include treatment that is "tantamount to torture." The report, which was based on a visit in June, also says some doctors were helping plan interrogations, "a flagrant violation of medical ethics." The interrogation techniques seen during the visit were "more refined and repressive" than previously noticed, the report states, and included "solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions... and some beatings." (The report doesn't further quantify "some.") The Wall Street Journal world-wide newsbox and Los Angeles Times lead with outgoing Ukrainian President Leniod Kuchma calling for new elections. That's a big concession to pro-democracy demonstrators and a knock at his chosen successor, Victor Yanukovych, who himself offered hedged support to limited recasting of votes.
The Washington Post leads with the U.N. endorsing the European's deal for Iran to suspend its nuclear program. U.N. inspectors have installed monitoring equipment and will theoretically know darn quick if Iran reneges. The U.S. wasn't involved in the deal, and "expressed reservations" about it. But the Post says the U.S. could ultimately stand to benefit, since if and when the agreement fails, the administration could tell other countries "told-ya-so," and have a much better shot at getting sanctions. USA Today leads with the Supreme Court declining to hear a challenge to Massachusetts' sanction of same-sex marriages.
President Kuchma warned, or maybe just acknowledged, that if the protests continue to in Kiev, Ukraine's financial system "will fold up like a house of cards." There are still plenty of details to work out about a re-vote, including whether it would be country-wide, and what kind of protections there would be against fraud. In other bad signs for the pro-government Yanukovych: His campaign manager quit and called for a full reelection, and Ukraine's defense minister said he's opposed to using force against the protestors: "Those who make such statements need to think about their words."
The NYT says inside that President Bush's recent statements about Ukraine have been more delicate than the full-throated criticism Secretary of State Powell offered. The paper adds that while most of their public statements have called for democracy to prevail, "privately, administration officials have been in regular contact with Russian and Ukrainian officials to push for compromise." (Kuchma made offered the re-vote concession right after he spoke to Powell.)
Somewhere between seven (WP, USAT, and Journal) and 12 Iraqis (NYT) were killed were killed by a suicide car bomber who hit a police station west of the capital. Two GIs were killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, and the military announced two Marines were killed in fighting over the weekend. Thirteen Marines were wounded by a mortar attack south of Baghdad. The WP says nine people were killed by a U.S. airstrike near Fallujah.
Over the weekend, insurgents raided a police station in Samara, looting the armory. The Post says they faced "no resistance." The security chief to Najaf's governor was arrested, on suspicion of being a guerilla and planning the assassination of his boss. And the British embassy has banned employees from traveling on the road from Baghdad's airport, where attacks are rising. An AP report in the Journal calls that stretch of highway "one of the most dangerous routes in Iraq."
A frontpage NYT piece overviews the Iraqi security forces, saying they're "foundering," "riddled with problems," and mostly useless. For those few police who still show up at work in Mosul, one American official said, "all they're doing is looking out the window and making sure the bad guys aren't coming to get them." The handful of units that are performing relatively well are mostly Kurdish, and their use can exacerbate ethnic tensions. (None of this is new; it's just been percolating in the backwaters at the Times.) Meanwhile, a similar piece inside the LAT is slightly more optimistic.
The Post fronts a study showing what the paper says is the first hard evidence that stress makes you age faster, or as the study found, causes the "shriveling of the tips of the bundles of genes inside cells."
The WP off-leads and others front President Bush nominating Kellogg chief Carlos Gutierrez as Secretary of Commerce. Gutierrez was born in Cuba and started out selling cereal out of his van. According to the Post, "Bush aides" see his "background in sales as a crucial credential, since Bush has used his economic team primarily to promote the White House agenda rather than to make policy." The paper also notes that some people appear to be turning down offers to be part of the new economic team. "Why would you want to take a job where you have no influence?" asked one conservative economist. "What's the point?" Meanwhile, Gutierrez immediately began reflecting on deep policy issues, noting at yesterday's unveiling that his experience indicates the president's "ownership society" is "real, and I know it's tangible."Eric Umansky writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@hotmail.com.Article

Posted on Tue, Nov. 30, 2004
REPORT FROM IRAQ THIRD OF SIX PARTS'Spraying and praying': Tired troops press onBy TOM LASSETERKnight Ridder News Service
FALLUJAH, Iraq - 11.10.04, Wednesday.
Joshua Franqui, a big kid with a tooth missing from the bottom of his smile, grew up in Augusta, Ga., and had never been farther than Louisiana before he signed up with the Army. Now he was fighting in Fallujah with the 1st Infantry Division's Alpha Company commanded by Capt. Sean Sims.
His uniform was stiff with sweat and dirt, and he'd become quiet over the past few days. No one asked why. Maybe it was all the noise from the gun he manned from his Bradley's gunner seat: the M242 25mm ''Bushmaster,'' a weapon capable of shooting 200 high-explosive rounds a minute.
Maybe it was seeing what his ''25 mike-mike'' did to human bodies.
A buddy walked up and asked, ``Hey, Franqui, how many kills you got?''
Franqui looked down, the smile slipping off his face.
''I don't know, man,'' he said. ``Sometimes they sort of vaporize when we hit `em.''
Franqui was standing in the front room of the house where he and his First Platoon mates had been catching off-hours of sleep for the past few days.
Many of the men wore skull and crossbones patches sewn onto their vests.
But Fallujah was not the place for bravado. It was constant, pounding violence, the sort that left the heat of passing bullets on a young soldier's face, and the crack and boom of rocket propelled grenades ringing in his head.
SURVIVED CLOSE CALL
On Tuesday, about eight men from the platoon had been trapped on the roof of a schoolhouse, with RPGs thudding into the walls and bullets coming down on them. A Bradley shot smoke rounds, and the soldiers jumped off the roof to escape slaughter.
Soldiers didn't discuss it when sitting around and sharing cigarettes.
Resting against his SAW machine gun -- a large gun with a tripod that weighs more than 16 pounds -- Spc. Sheldon Howard, 20, listened as his platoon commander gave orders to move out in a few minutes. Dark rings formed below his eyes. Dirt showed in thick bands across his forehead when he took off his helmet.
`I'M TIRED'
Howard, who wore glasses and had a round face, grew up near a Navajo reservation outside of Farmington, N.M., and usually didn't speak much.
''I'm tired and I don't want to be here,'' Howard said. ``I don't want to take all of this back with me, but I probably will.''
Picking through a box of Meal Ready to Eat rations, Sgt. Scott Bentley, 22, said he didn't mind killing insurgents in Fallujah because it would keep them from coming up to his base north of Baghdad. ''I'm tired of my buddies dying,'' he said.
Bentley, of Philadelphia, allowed that the past few days had been rough.
''Every place we take a roof, the RPGs come flying,'' he said. At times, he said, he and his men were ``just kind of spraying and praying.''
The lieutenant walked in and said it was time to go. Howard hefted up his weapon and jogged outside to his Bradley, the one with the number ''16'' written on an orange tarp hanging off the back of the turret.
The vehicle began taking fire almost immediately. Its 25mm gun roared.
A group of fighters darted from one house to the next, launching RPGs, which were exploding all around.
`BODY PARTS ALL OVER'
Spc. Arthur Wright watched out of the porthole-like windows of the Bradley.
''They killed somebody,'' he yelled. ``There's body parts all over the streets. Yes! Yes!''
The back of the Bradley lurched open, and the men scrambled toward a house where insurgents had fled.
A shotgun blasted the front door, a kick and then another shotgun blast. Smoke filled the house.
''Don't touch anything,'' said Sgt. Isaac Ward. ``They may have deliberately broken contact to lure us in.''
M-16 fire rang through the next room. Ward ran that way, only to find soldiers staring at an open back door. The soldiers went through the door and down an alleyway, scanning the roofline for movement. Gunfire started a few blocks away.
Ward wiped sweat from his eyes.
''They've got this shit figured out,'' he said. ``They're running around the back of a house as we bust in through the gate.''
Outside, the bodies Wright had seen were lying in the street.
One of them had been run over by a Bradley, leaving a mound of meat and bones in the sunlight. A large green bag lay next to the remains.
Ward took out a camera and clicked a few pictures.
Bentley ran over to grab the bag. He gave it a yank, and an arm rose out of the pile, but the strap would not give. With his friends looking on, Bentley pulled harder and harder, and the arm flapped in the air. Another soldier joined in the tug of war, and the arm leapt up, disgorged from its body, and Bentley fell back a little, bag in hand.
''F-----g Hajji,'' he muttered, using grunt slang for Iraqis.
BLOODY BILLS
Inside, a stack of $100 and $20 bills was covered with gore. Bentley flipped through quickly, and counted about $800 in all.
Back in the Bradley, Wright asked if Bentley would get to keep the money. No, said Sgt. Randy Laird. It was being put in a plastic bag and handed over to an intelligence officer. Laird, a 24-year-old from Lake Charles, La., with dirty blond hair, paused.
Besides, he said, who would want cash with all that blood on it?
Sgt. Dave Bowden laughed.
''It's just a little bit of Hajji blood,'' he said. ``What's the problem?''
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