Despite the costs and the continued attacks against both U.S. and United Nations personnel, most Americans support maintaining current military levels in Iraq—for now anyway. Fifty-six percent approve of keeping large numbers of U.S. military personnel in Iraq for two years or less; 28 percent would support a stay of one to two years, while another 28 percent would support a stay of up to one year. Eighteen percent support keeping large numbers of troops in Iraq for three to five years, three percent for six to 10 years, and 11 percent for more than 10 years (just five percent want to bring troops home now).
Sixty-one percent still believe that the United States was right to take military action against Iraq in March; 33 percent do not.

 
Mr Wolfowitz, like Mr Bush, is not intimidated by the Iraq battle. He quoted a top general as saying: "It's much better to be killing those people in Iraq than to have them come here and kill Americans."

But terrorists do not just take on soldiers. They hit soft targets and on Tuesday this resulted in the death and wounding of scores of UN workers in Iraq, local and foreign, including the death of the UN head of mission, Sergio de Mello.

"It was a great loss for the United Nations but it's a huge blow to the United States," said former US diplomat Peter Galbraith. "It demonstrates that the Americans are not in command."

It also sent a message to every US ally, UN official or private company thinking of co-operating with the US occupation forces in Iraq that the US cannot protect them.

The Bush Administration might try to persuade the Pakistani or Turkish governments to put up troops for Iraq but the anti-US forces are warning that their barracks and their soldiers will be targets.

As Mr Bush's summer comes to an early close, he faces a brutal political reality. Within the next six months, he will be moving into an election campaign. For some time, his Democratic rivals have nursed vain hopes of challenging Mr Bush on national security, a prospect unthinkable after September 11.

But today, Mr Bush's allies and opponents believe his credentials are increasingly being tested in Iraq and the Middle East. And despite his confident rhetoric, he may well be forced to rethink his ambitious foreign strategy before the election.


Published in http://www.theage.com.au
By Marian Wilkinson

 
Very interesting stuff at the Royal Courts of Justice and the Hutton
Inquiry. This afternoon an employee of the Foreign Office revealed a
conversation that he'd had with Dr Kelly back in February. The gist of
it appears to have been that Dr Kelly felt that he'd betrayed the Iraqis
as he'd tried to persuade them to cooperate with the UN inspectors in
order to avoid a US invasion. Eerily, Dr Kelly ended the conversation by
saying "that he would be probably be found dead in the woods".

 
Reuters Cameraman Killed For Filming U.S. Graves: Brother


Mazen found U.S. troops covered in plastic bags in remote desert areas and he filmed them for a TV program

By Awad al-Ragoub, IOL Correspondent

AL-KHALIL, West Bank, August 19 (IslamOnline.net) - The brother of Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana said he was deliberately murdered for discovering mass graves of U.S. troops killed in Iraqi resistance attacks.

"The U.S. troops killed my brother in cold blood," Nazmi Dana told IslamOnline.net in exclusive statements.

"The U.S. occupation troops shot dead my brother on purpose, although he was wearing his press badge, which was also emblazoned on the car he was driving," he said.

He also recalled that his brother had obtained a prior permit from the U.S. occupation authorities in Iraq to film in the site.

On Sunday, August 17, U.S. troops shot dead the award-winning Reuters cameraman while he was filming near the U.S.-run Abu Gharib prison in Baghdad.

His last pictures show a U.S. tank driving toward him outside the prison walls, several shots ring out from the tank and the camera falls to the ground.

Mass Grave

"Mazen told me by phone few days before his death that he discovered a mass grave dug by U.S. troops to conceal the bodies of their fellow comrades killed in Iraqi resistance attacks," Nazmi said.

"He also told me that he found U.S. troops covered in plastic bags in remote desert areas and he filmed them for a TV program. We are pretty sure that the American forces had killed Mazen knowingly to prevent him from airing his finding."

Nazmi said that the U.S. occupation troops were slowing down the transfer of his brother’s body to his hometown city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) in the West Bank.

"At the very beginning, the Americans refused to transfer his body outside Iraq. After Reuters intervened they offered to allow us to take the body to Jordan by road but we refused because of the state of insecurity in Iraq," he said.

 
Bush: "Because we still have combat operations going on." Bush added: "It's a different kind of combat mission, but, nevertheless, it's combat, just ask the kids that are over there killing and being shot at."

 
U.S. Troops Shoot Dead Reuters Cameraman in Iraq
18 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Andrew Marshall

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops shot dead an award-winning Reuters cameraman while he was filming on Sunday near a U.S.-run prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.


Reuters Photo



Eyewitnesses said soldiers on an American tank shot at Mazen Dana, 43, as he filmed outside Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad which had earlier come under a mortar attack.


Dana's last pictures show a U.S. tank driving toward him outside the prison walls. Several shots ring out from the tank, and Dana's camera falls to the ground.


The U.S. military acknowledged on Sunday that its troops had "engaged" a Reuters cameraman, saying they had thought his camera was a rocket propelled grenade launcher.


"Army soldiers engaged an individual they thought was aiming an RPG at them. It turned out to be a Reuters cameraman," Navy Captain Frank Thorp, a spokesman for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Reuters in Washington.


Journalists had gone to the prison after the U.S. military said a mortar bomb attack there a day before had killed six Iraqis and wounded 59 others.


Recounting the moments before the shooting, Reuters soundman Nael al-Shyoukhi, who was working with Dana, said he had asked a U.S. soldier near the prison if they could speak to an officer and was told they could not.


"They saw us and they knew about our identities and our mission," Shyoukhi said. The incident happened in the afternoon in daylight.


The soldier agreed to their request to film an overview of the prison from a bridge nearby.


"After we filmed we went into the car and prepared to go when a convoy led by a tank arrived and Mazen stepped out of the car to film. I followed him and Mazen walked three to four meters (yards). We were noted and seen clearly," Shyoukhi said.


"A soldier on the tank shot at us. I lay on the ground. I heard Mazen and I saw him scream and touching his chest.


"I cried at the soldier, telling him you killed a journalist. They shouted at me and asked me to step back and I said 'I will step back, but please help, please help and stop the bleed'.


"They tried to help him but Mazen bled heavily. Mazen took a last breath and died before my eyes."


AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST


Dana's death brings to 17 the number of journalists or their assistants who have died in Iraq (news - web sites) since war began on March 20. Two others have been missing since the first days of the war.


Dana is the second Reuters cameraman to be killed since the U.S.-led force invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).


On April 8, Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian based in Warsaw, died when a U.S. tank fired a shell at the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel, the base for many foreign media in Baghdad.





"Mazen was one of Reuters finest cameramen and we are devastated by his loss," said Stephen Jukes, Reuters global head of news.

"He was a brave and award-winning journalist who had worked in many of the world's hot spots," Jukes said.

"He was committed to covering the story wherever it was and was an inspiration to friends and colleagues at Reuters and throughout the industry. Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with his family."

Dana, a Palestinian, had worked for Reuters mostly in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Paul Holmes, former Reuters bureau chief in Jerusalem, recalled a towering, chain-smoking bear of a man with a ruddy complexion and expansive heart.

"The amazing thing about him was he was like the king of Hebron. Every journalist in the city looked up to him and any journalist who covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will know and love Mazen," he said.

Reuters Chief Executive Tom Glocer said he hoped there would be "the fullest and most comprehensive investigation into this terrible tragedy."

Married with four young children, Dana was one of the company's most experienced conflict journalists and had worked in Baghdad before, shortly after U.S. troops entered the city.

He was awarded an International Press Freedom Award in 2001 by the Committee to Protect Journalists for his work in Hebron where he was wounded and beaten many times. (additional reporting by Charles Aldinger in Washington)

 
Kuwait City, Umm Qasr and Basra :: Ryan Dilley

As a correspondent of the war, I feel something of a fraud. While others, the so-called "embeds", witnessed the fighting at first-hand, I visited the battlegrounds days after the firing had ceased.

While others roughed it under the stars, I for the most part enjoyed room service and clean sheets.


Some are asking if Iraq has been liberated or invaded
But I saw enough to know that I had seen very little of what conflict has to offer. And I understand only little of what I did observe.

I saw utter terror in the eyes of Kuwaitis when the sirens warned of an incoming Iraqi missile, but witnessed a carnival atmosphere when locals rushed to see the one projectile that did slam into their city.

I saw callous and calculated acts of destruction perpetrated by both sides, but balanced by acts of great generosity and kindness.

I have seen a boy enraged to the point of throwing stones because he was denied a chocolate bar, while another youth - shot through the middle and dying - behaved with utter composure, politeness and dignity.

I have seen a palace the splendour of which was made all the more sickening by the poverty, filth and want in the city beyond its gates. I have seen people with great intelligence and potential, trapped in a situation surely created by fools.

I have hidden from lightning and scurried from rain, but watched the tracer bullets and flares of a fire fight as if it were on TV.

What I am really not sure about is whether I have seen a liberation or an invasion.