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"It's like watching your son playing in traffic, and there's nothing you can do. You can't reach him."JANET BELLOWS, on her son's pending deployment to Iraq.

December 22, 2004
U.S. General Says Mosul Blast Appears to Be Suicide BombBy DAVID STOUT and JOHN O'NEIL

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 - Military investigators believe that a suicide bomber touched off the explosion that killed 22 people and wounded dozens of others Tuesday at an American base in Iraq, the Pentagon said today.
"At this point, it looks like it was an improvised explosive device worn by an attacker," Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a news briefing with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "We will take appropriate steps to prevent potential future attacks of this nature."
The explosion ripped through a mess tent at Forward Operating Base Marez at lunchtime, killing at least 13 American soldiers. The base is on the edge of Mosul.
Today, American troops swept through Mosul, backed up by armored vehicles, jets and helicopter gunships, hunting for suspects, western news agencies reported. The city's streets were described as deserted.
The casualty figure from the explosion was lowered slightly today, from the 24 dead reported late Tuesday. In addition to the 13 American troops, five American civilians and three Iraqi National Guard members were killed, and one unidentified person described by the Army as a "non-U.S. person."
The militant Sunni group Ansar al-Sunna issued a statement over the Internet Tuesday taking responsibility for the attack and claiming that one of its fighters had carried out a "martyrdom operation" against forces it described as unbelievers and occupiers.
Mr. Rumsfeld and General Myers declined to go into detail today on the physical evidence that points to a suicide bomber.
Immediately after the explosion, it was clear to observers that the holes blasted into kitchen equipment were very round, at least suggesting the use of ball bearings, which have been a favorite weapon for suicide bombers in Israel and elsewhere.
A single foot-wide hole found in the tile floor of the mess hall, in the vicinity of the line where troops lined up with their trays, also seemed to suggest the presence of a bomber.
"If it was a rocket, you'd find traces of a rocket," General Myers said, suggesting that no traces of a rocket, or of a mortar shell, for that matter, had been found.
There were reports earlier in the day, broadcast by ABC, that a human torso and a backpack had been found amid the bloody wreckage in the mess tent. A more specific announcement was to be made later today in Iraq.
Asked whether the "non-U.S. person" among the dead was believed to have been the suicide bomber, the general said: "I think that's to be
determined. I don't want to speculate on that because we don't know."
The secretary addressed an obvious question: how could a suicide attacker get into a supposedly secure American military base and into an area where the troops might think they can relax and be safe?
A partial answer, Mr. Rumsfeld said, is that United States and Iraqi security forces have to be right every time. "An attacker only has to be right occasionally," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
One obvious difficulty in detecting insurgent attacks, General Myers said, is that "they can wear, and they do, clothes like any other Iraqi."
The officials were asked about the vetting that takes place before Iraqis are hired to work at American based. General Myers said a "fact sheet" would be made available.
An Associated Press reporter on the streets of Mosul today described the city as deserted, with most schools closed and traffic police absent from even major intersections.
American forces shut down Mosul's five bridges, and concentrated their raids in three neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city, the reporter said.
Reuters reported that Mosul's mayor had warned residents that anyone attempting to use the bridges last night would be shot.
The Army gave little details about the targets of the day's raids. "We are conducting offensive operations to target specific objectives," Lt. Col. Paul Hastings told Reuters.
But residents told the news agency that most Iraqis had decided to take no chances in the face of the show of force. "Students went to school but were told to go home. People went to the shops, saw American troops in the streets, and went home," said Ahmad, 25, a Mosul car dealer too anxious to give his surname.
The explosion at the base wounded 69 people, including 44 American military personnel. Today, wounded American soldiers and civilians were flown to to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, to be transferred to the Landstuhl Army Medical Center for treatment.
The explosion was the deadliest episode for American soldiers in Iraq since shortly after the invasion. Twenty-nine American troops were killed on March 23, 2003.
The largest previous death toll as a result of insurgent attack also took place in Mosul, on Nov. 15, 2003, when two helicopters dodging ground fire crashed into each other, killing 18 Americans.
Mr. Rumsfeld and General Myers said today, as they have before, that the bloodshed in Iraq, however ugly, is not surprising, given the fact that elections in that country are only weeks away, and that people who were rendered powerless by the overthrow of Saddam Hussein refuse to go away quietly.
"We have said all along we expected the violence to increase as we got closer to the election," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "These folks have a lot to lose," he said, referring to the insurgents.
Mr. Rumsfeld said his "thoughts and prayers" were with the dead and their relatives, and that seeing the grief of affected families "is something that I feel to my core."
"Our troops are making a difference," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Let there be no doubt." United States military people - "America's true treasure," Mr. Rumsfeld called them - are helping to build a free Iraq and, by extension, spreading freedom into global corners where it does not yet thrive, the secretary said.
"We must do what it takes," the secretary said. "We must not allow people who chop off heads to control."
But while saying that the United States must not - and will not - abandon its mission in Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld said that, in the end, permanent security in Iraq must be enforced by the Iraqis. "It's their country," he said.
David Stout reported from Washington for this article and John O'Neil from New York. Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Christine Hauser contributed reporting from Baghdad.
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December 22, 2004THE PUBLIC
Fighting On Is the Only Option, Americans SayBy KIRK JOHNSON
DENVER, Dec. 21 - Americans across the country expressed anguish about the devastating attack on a United States military base in Iraq on Tuesday. But it was the question of where the nation should go from here that produced the biggest sigh from Dallas Spear, an oil and gas industry worker from Denver.
"I would never have gone there from the beginning, but that's beside the point now," Mr. Spear said, his jaw clenched. "We upset the apple cart and now there's pretty much no choice. We have to proceed."
Mr. Spear's sentiment was echoed in interviews in shopping malls, offices, sidewalks and homes on a day when the news from Iraq was bleak. With 14 American service members killed and dozens injured, it was apparently the worst one-day death toll for American forces since United States forces defeated Saddam Hussein's regime in spring 2003.
Many people said they were dispirited or angry, but many expressed equal unhappiness about seeing a lack of options.
Whether one supported or opposed the invasion has become irrelevant, many said - there is only the road ahead now, with few signs to guide the way.
One soldier who has been to Iraq and is soon to go back said he believes the war itself has changed, and that guerrilla attacks like the one in the northern Iraq city of Mosul on Tuesday have constricted the view on the ground about how to proceed.
"When we went to war there was a clear-cut enemy," said Specialist Richard P. Basilio, 27, of Philadelphia, who leaves for Iraq after the holidays for a 12- to 18-month deployment as an Army computer technician. It will be his third tour to the Middle East and his second to Iraq. "Now the rules have totally changed. You don't know what's going on," he added. "You just have no idea who's your friend and who's your enemy."
Mr. Basilio's mother, Janet Bellows of Daytona Beach, Fla., said the bombing in Mosul, combined with the prospect of her son's departure, have left her "absolutely devastated."
"It's like watching your son playing in traffic, and there's nothing you can do," Ms. Bellows said. "You can't reach him."
Polls show that many Americans were deeply concerned about the course of the war even before Tuesday's attack. Out of 1,002 Americans surveyed last Friday and Saturday by the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, 47 percent said, when asked how the United States had handled Iraq during the past year, that things had gotten worse. Twenty percent said the situation had improved and 32 percent said it was about the same.
Some people said that polls themselves were part of the problem.
Charlie Eubanks, a cotton farmer and lawyer from the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, said he supported President Bush but had been lukewarm about going to war. Now, he said there was no choice but to fight on, and that reports on opinion polls were only "aiding and abetting" the enemy by making opponents think the American will is weak.
"We've got to hang in there and get it done," Mr. Eubanks said.
Some people said that part of what they struggle with is how to square the ongoing violence with their beliefs about human nature and decency.
"How to deal with the rebels and the insurgency - I don't know. But I believe that people are inherently good and rational," said Traci Sillick, a financial adviser from Broomfield, Colo. Ms. Sillick said she thought the nation should protect the soldiers, give them a clear mission, and then help the Iraqi people as best it can.
"I still don't see any good coming from this," she said. "I'm saddened and angered."
Mike Lepis, 30, a small-business owner from Portland, Ore., on a visit to Atlanta, said the bombing reinforced the distinction in his mind between the troops fighting the war and the war itself. "I don't agree with the war, but I support the troops," Mr. Lepis said. "It leads me to believe we have less control when we can't guarantee their safety. It's particularly unsettling when you hear about violence in areas that are supposed to be secure."
Carolyn Jolly, 50, a civilian employee of the Army in Fort Lee, Va., said the attack did not change her opinion that American forces should be in Iraq. But she is equally firm in her belief that they should get out as soon as possible. And she is worried.
"I think we should stay through the elections," Ms. Jolly said. "I support the president's plan up to there. But if we're going to focus on Iraq without support of other nations, I see the violence increasing. I can't see a democratic Iraq. So what are we doing there?"
And while some said the attack reinforced their belief that the Bush administration had failed in its goals, others found it hard to place blame.
Stan Joynes, a real estate lawyer and developer in Richmond, Va., said the administration was not upfront about what would be required in Iraq. But maybe, he added, the administration did not know either.
"We know now we weren't getting the whole picture," he said. "I don't think they knew the whole picture."
One military veteran, Bob Mayo, 73, who served in the Air Force from 1949 to 1957, said that increasing violence in Iraq was just a sign of desperation by the nation's enemies.
"It tells me that they are worried that they are going to lose," said Mr. Mayo, of Newcastle, Colo. "They are just trying to make it as painful as possible and they don't care how they do it."
Mr. Mayo said he would not characterize the situation in Iraq as getting worse. "There is no worse in war," he said. "War is the worst thing that can happen."
Another military veteran who has become active in opposing the war said the message of Tuesday's attack was not desperation, but greater organization by the insurgents.
"It's just like Vietnam: the longer we stay there, the more anti-American sentiment will be drummed up, the more organized the insurgency becomes," said Mike Hoffman of Iraq Veterans Against the War and a former Marine lance corporal who was in Iraq from March to early May 2003. "Unfortunately, the longer we stick around, the more we're likely to see attacks like this."
Reporting for this article was contributed by Lisa Bacon from Richmond, Va.; Ariel Hart from Atlanta; Karen Hastings from Harlingen, Tex.; Gretchen Ruethling from Chicago; and Mindy Sink from Denver.
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December 22, 2004
Kerik Resigns From Giuliani Consulting FirmBy WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

Less than two weeks after abruptly pulling his name from consideration as President Bush's homeland security secretary, Bernard B. Kerik announced today he is resigning from the consulting firm of his mentor, former mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.
In a hastily called news conference, Mr. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, said he had apologized to Mr. Giuliani and to Mr. Bush for "the difficulty that the recent events have caused all of them." He said his resignation from Giuliani Partners, a security consulting firm, would be effective immediately.
"After careful consideration, I've decided that it's in the best interest of my family, my colleagues, our clients" to resign from the security firm, he said, standing alone.
Mr. Kerik, who cited questions related to the immigration status of a former household employee when he withdrew as a nominee on Dec. 10, has come under scrutiny lately for other business dealings and personal missteps.
Mr. Kerik said he would spend his time pursuing other business opportunities and possibly writing another book. He also said he would use the time to "focus on family, business dealings, things that have to be focused on at this point, and to clear my good name."
"The events surrounding my withdrawal have become an unfair and unnecessary distraction to the firm , and most importantly to the work they do at the firm," he said. "I'm confident that I will be vindicated from any allegations of wrongdoing."
Last week, Mr. Giuliani told the Times in an interview that he had no plans to remove Mr. Kerik, and that his clients had assured him they still thought his services were valuable.
"The Bernie Kerik situation is a situation that really related to a group of questions that he has to answer, but do not affect our business," Mr. Giuliani said last week. He added that if clients had concerns about Mr. Kerik, "that is something I would talk to them about confidentially and then assess."
In a statement, Mr. Giuliani said Giuliani-Kerik LLC, an affiliate of Giuliani Partners, would be renamed Giuliani Security & Safety. Mr. Kerik had been chief executive officer of Giuliani-Kerik.
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News Home - Help

More Pregnancies, and False Alarms, in Winter
Wed Dec 22, 1:33 PM ET
By Alison McCook
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Sales of pregnancy tests typically soar in the first months of the year, as more women than usual tend to become pregnant -- or just think they are, according to Inverness Medical, the makers of the Clearblue Easy pregnancy tests.
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Dr. Brad Imler, president of the American Pregnancy Association, told Reuters Health that most births occur in August and September -- nine months after December and January. Furthermore, winter holiday months tend to be very stressful for women, and stress can cause women to miss their period -- often the first sign of pregnancy, Imler said.
He explained that the best way to distinguish a true pregnancy from a false alarm is to focus on additional symptoms of pregnancy. These include tender or swollen breasts, fatigue, nausea, headaches, backaches and a change in appetite.
Women who have just missed a period but don't feel anything else may not really be pregnant, Imler noted. "The absence of other pregnancy symptoms is probably the best clue that it is the stress of the holidays," he said.
Women often become stressed during the winter months for financial reasons, Imler said, when Christmas brings "additional needs for spending." Often, women are also responsible for the majority of the family's gifts, cards and parties, he noted, and some women in school may worry about end-of-semester exams.
In addition, many women start the New Year with a resolution to exercise more, and a big shift in activity -- such as going from no exercise to many workouts per week -- can cause periods to be delayed, missed or lightened, Imler noted. Changes in menstruation are not necessarily a sign that women are exercising too much, he added, as long as their periods return to normal within one or two months.
More women tend to also want to conceive during the holidays, Imler said in an interview, in order to spend most of their pregnancies in the winter, when they can largely stay indoors and relax. In winter, women also can get "caught up in the spirit" of the holidays, when they spend happy time with family and children.
Women who have questions about problems with menstruation -- and wonder whether they might be pregnant -- can call the American Pregnancy Association toll-free support line at 1-800-672-2296, Imler said. He added that the line typically receives 32,000 calls per year.
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