Party Vibe

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0907/dailyUpdate.html?s=ent2

The US military says that almost 1,100 soldiers were wounded during the month of August in Iraq, the highest total since the invasion of the country 18 months ago. Attacks on US troops averaged more than 100 a day in August. The Washington Post reports that the figure is a sign of the intensity and duration of the heavy urban fighting in cities like Najaf, Ramadi, Samarra, Falujah and the Sadr City slum section of Baghdad. Most of these cities remain under the control of insurgents despite the transfer of political authority to an interim national government.

“They were doing battlefield urban operations in four places at one time,” said Lt. Col. Albert Maas, operations officer for the 2nd Medical Brigade, which oversees US combat hospitals in Iraq. “It’s like working in downtown Detroit. You’re going literally building to building.”

The good news was that combat deaths (66), while the highest total since May, were not climbing as fast as the number of injured. Officials created the reintroduction of “heavy armored” equipment, like Abrams tanks and the Bradley fighting vehicles, for keeping the death toll down despite the intense fighting. There are no official figures available for the number of Iraqi insurgents and civilians killed or hurt.

But as August ends and September begins, the fighting does not seem to have diminshed. The Associated Press reports that Sunday seven US Marines and three Iraqi National Guard troops were killed when a suicide bomber drove up beside two Humvees and detonated his “explosive laden” car nine miles north of Fallujah. The bombing was the largest number of US military personel killed in one attack since May 2 when nine US soldiers were killed in separate mortar attacks and roadside bombings in Baghdad, Ramadi and Kirkuk.

Roadside bombs killed three American soldiers in Baghdad, and a fourth soldier died in a blast near Mosul, the US military said on Tuesday. So far 990 US troops have died in Iraq, while more than 100 other troops from other nations have also died.

Meanwhile, the governor of Baghdad survived an assassination attempt. The BBC reports that 34 people were killed as US forces fought insurgents in Sadr City, the section of Baghdad that is home to the largest contingent of supporters of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Newsday reports on Tuesday that over the weekend Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, one of the highest-ranking US generals in Iraq, did not dismiss the concept of holding January elections throughout the country while “leaving out any lone rebellious enclave.” The Los Angeles Times reports that Lt. Gen. Metz feels fair elections could be held without cities like Fallujah being included.

‘We’d have elections before we let one place like Fallujah stop [national] elections,’ said Metz, the number two US military official in Iraq. ‘The rest of the country can go on about a process that heads right for an election.’

The Times says Metz’s statements are the clearest indication yet by any US official of just how “perilious” the security situation in Iraq has become. Officials could stick to their timetables for an election if it bypassed cities like Fallujah and others, but it could “detract from the election’s credibility, foment discontent in Iraq, and leave other countries reluctant to acknowledge any government chosen in the vote.”
AP notes that Metz also said major US assaults on one or more of these cities controlled by insurgents is likely before any elections would be held in January

Besides these centers of rebellion, large sections of Iraq remain beyond government control and out of reach of elections. These include Sunni Muslim areas north and west of Baghdad and, perhaps, southern Shiite cities like Basra, where sections resist US or British troops. Assaults to retake these areas could be done consecutively or simultaneously, Metz said. He said one or more might be solved through negotiations, with leaders warning that their cities face a devastating US offensive if the insurgents don’t stand down.

The Daily Star of Lebanon reports Tuesday on how many Iraqis don’t see the interim Iraqi National Assembly as representative of them. The Star says that one of the toughest tasks Iraqi politicians face is changing the attitudes of people “unaccustomed to involvement in governing.” But members have already been discussing giving themselves pay raises and immunity from prosecution. They also decided to establish committees on foreign, national, and social affairs; security; education; immigration; economics; and elections.

‘This doesn’t deserve to be called a National Assembly,’ said Sheikh Abdul-Sattar Abdul-Jabbar, a spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars, a hard-line Sunni Islamist group opposed to the current political status quo. ‘They don’t even respect the law that they themselves put in place.’ But other Iraqis, even those who say the interim government doesn’t represent their interests, said they were more hopeful. ‘We have to approve of it because it exists,’ said Safa Hossein, 25, a laborer in Adhamiyah, a Sunni stronghold in Baghdad long opposed to the US presence here. ‘It’s better than nothing, better than being occupied, better than Saddam.’