Iraq Roundup
The terrorists continue to kill people and disrupt the rebuilding of Iraq, but there are nonetheless important milestones being reached daily.
WaPo — Explosion Outside Iraqi Recruiting Station Kills 35
A car bomb steered to its target by a suicide driver exploded in a tremendous blast outside an Iraqi security forces recruiting station in downtown Baghdad Thursday, killing at least 35 people and wounding 138 others who were waiting to sign up or passing by.
A white sport-utility vehicle packed with artillery shells blew up as about 100 recruits were trying to enter the station outside Baghdad’s Muthanna airport, Iraqi officials said. Many of the victims had just gotten off a bus when the suicide car bomb detonated.
Although the base is used by both the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and the U.S. military, no American or Iraqi troops were killed or injured, according to Col. Mike Murray of the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division. Murray told reporters that most of the victims were passersby.
Visiting the scene under the protection of Iraqi police and western security guards, Iraq’s interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, described the bombing as a “cowardly attack” aimed at “the stability of Iraq and the Iraqi people,” news agencies reported.
“We are going to face these escalations,” he said, according to the Associated Press. “The Iraqi people are going to prevail, and the government of Iraq is determined to go ahead in confronting the enemies.”
USA Today — Iraqis To Regain Control Of The Renovated Baghdad Airport
raq’s new leadership will take control of a rehabilitated Baghdad International Airport in the next few weeks. The hand-over is expected to open the door for the first normal commercial service since the U.S. invasion 15 months ago.
For the past year, American experts and Iraqi technicians have been working to repair and update the former Saddam International Airport. Although the French-designed airport is only 22 years old, it had fallen into disrepair. United Nations-mandated sanctions, flight restrictions and a battle between invading U.S. troops and Saddam Hussein’s army left their marks.
Now one of three main terminals has been restored, improvements to the main runway and the radars are underway and Iraqi air traffic controllers returned to the tower two weeks ago. They are handling most of the roughly 50 cargo charter flights a day. There also is a daily charter passenger flight from Jordan.
WaPo — U.S. Sets Conditions For Detainee Transfer
The United States will turn over detainees to Iraqi authorities as soon after June 30 as U.S. officials determine that they can be held safely and in compliance with international human rights norms, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Wednesday.
The U.S. position was delivered during the opening round of high-level security consultations between Iraq’s new interim leadership and a delegation led by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and his British counterpart, Kevin Tebbit. The talks are intended to help pave the way for the scheduled transfer of limited sovereignty to Iraq at the end of the month and the arrival in the next few weeks of a new set of top U.S. diplomatic and military authorities, who U.S. officials said plan to pursue more detailed discussions on managing the next phase of U.S.-Iraqi relations.
WSJ — Iraqis May Get More Influence Over U.S. Military Operations [$]
Facing an increasingly violent insurgency and the fast-approaching transfer of sovereignty, U.S. officials are pushing to give the new Iraqi government far more influence over how U.S. military operations in Iraq are conducted and what future Iraqi security forces should look like.
U.S. officials say it is critical that the U.S. military look less like an occupying force in Iraq, where its presence is desperately needed but increasingly unpopular with average Iraqis who blame the U.S. for failing to prevent a recent spike in violence. Iraqi insurgents yesterday assassinated a senior Iraqi security official in the rich northern oil fields near Kirkuk and exploded a second critical pipeline in the south, cutting off the flow of oil and costing Iraqis as much as $60 million a day. In Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, insurgents struck a U.S. base with a rocket killing two soldiers and wounding more than 20.
The attacks yesterday are the latest in a string of assassinations of senior and midlevel Iraqi government officials and car bombings that have rocked Baghdad over the past two weeks and driven home just how fragile the security situation is in the country.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have been increasingly at odds over how to fight the insurgency and how best to conduct sensitive military operations such as the recent U.S. assaults on radical Shiite and Sunni forces in the cities of Najaf and Fallujah, where the Iraqis say U.S. troops have been too heavy-handed. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi yesterday discussed the need for a consultative body that would allow Iraqis to play a role in shaping large U.S. military operations in Iraq after the sovereignty transfer. Mr. Wolfowitz is in Baghdad to discuss Iraq’s security, economy and political process with interim-government leaders in advance of the June 30 transfer of power.
