[Peace-discuss] if you invade you must pay price

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

and they are just figuring this out? talk about real idiots  

Commander: GIs in Iraq Face Revenge Raids
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 
Filed at 5:35 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The commander of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq said in 
an interview published Wednesday that U.S. forces, already under pressure 
from a guerrilla-style resistance, now face revenge attacks from ordinary Iraqis 
angered by the occupation.

North of Baghdad, there were at least three separate attacks on U.S. forces 
with roadside bombs in less than 1 1/2 hours Wednesday morning. Witnesses 
reported injured soldiers, but details were unclear. The attacks hit U.S. Humvees 
about 12 miles north of Baghdad near al-Taji.

While U.S. forces increasingly patrol Iraqi hotspots with American-trained 
local militiamen, citizens voice growing anger with tactics that are seen as 
heavy-handed and insensitive to Iraqi social and religious customs.

``We have seen that when we have an incident in the conduct of our 
operations, when we killed an innocent civilian, based on their ethic, their values, 
their culture, they would seek revenge,'' Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez was quoted as 
telling The Times newspaper in London.

Coalition forces were seeking ``to ensure that when a mistake has been made 
and when we have inadvertently wound up killing someone that we go and do the 
right thing culturally to take care of those families.'' The Times' report did 
not elaborate on those steps.

Sanchez's remarks came after the friendly fire killing late last week of 
eight Iraqi policemen by American soldiers near Fallujah, 30 miles west of 
Baghdad. The military and the U.S. administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, have 
apologized.

Six people claiming to be Americans and two who say they are British are in 
U.S. custody on suspicion of involvement in attacks on coalition forces, an 
American general said Tuesday. They would be the first Westerners reported held 
in the insurrection against the U.S.-led occupation.

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who is in charge of coalition detention centers 
in Iraq, said they were considered security detainees, meaning they were 
suspected of involvement in guerrilla attacks. She did not identify them but said 
they were being interrogated by military intelligence in Baghdad.

``We actually do have six who are claiming to be Americans, two who are 
claiming to be from the U.K. We're continuing the interviewing process. The details 
become sketchy and their story changes,'' Karpinski said Tuesday.

She said there were ``several ... hundred third-country nationals in 
custody.''

She declined to give more details on those being held.

``We're not trying to withhold information from you. Some information remains 
classified for security reasons,'' Karpinski said during a tour of Abu Ghraib 
prison, where Saddam Hussein once locked up his political opponents.

Asked about the detainees at a Pentagon news conference, Defense Secretary 
Donald H. Rumsfeld said: ``The truth is that the folks that we've scooped up 
have, on a number of occasions, multiple identifications from different 
countries. They're quite skilled at confusing people as to what their real nationality 
is or where they came from or what they're doing.''

The British government said it was investigating the claims.

``We are urgently following up the reports,'' a Foreign Office spokeswoman 
said on condition of anonymity. She would not confirm whether the United States 
had informed British officials of the arrests.

If Westerners are actively involved in the resistance, it would deepen 
confusion about what groups are involved. Initially, the guerrilla fighters were 
thought to be Saddam loyalists, but in recent weeks U.S. officials have said they 
are being joined by foreign fighters, possibly al-Qaida members.

The revelation recalls the capture of John Walker Lindh in Afghanistan, where 
the American fought alongside Taliban and al-Qaida fighters following the 
Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Lindh was sentenced last year to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to 
supplying services to the Taliban militia, which ruled Afghanistan and was 
ousted by a U.S.-led coalition.

In December 2001, British citizen Richard Reid, a member of al-Qaida, was 
arrested after trying to light explosives hidden in his shoes on a Paris-to-Miami 
flight. Reid pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.

American troops in Afghanistan also captured Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was flown 
to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and held there for several 
months until it was discovered he was born in Baton Rouge, La. He was held in the 
naval brig in Norfolk, Va., then transferred in late July to a jail at the 
Charleston Naval Weapons Station in South Carolina.

At least nine Britons are being detained in Guantanamo, where some 660 men 
from 42 countries are being held on suspicion of links to the Taliban or 
al-Qaida. None of the men has been charged and some have been held for nearly two 
years without access to lawyers.

Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, a spokeswoman for the mission in Guantanamo, said 
Tuesday that none of the detainees being held there were captured in Iraq. 


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Rumsfeld Sees No Link Between Iraq, 9 / 11
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 
Filed at 9:11 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday he had 
no reason to believe that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had a hand in the Sept. 11, 
2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

At a Pentagon news conference, Rumsfeld was asked about a poll that indicated 
nearly 70 percent of respondents believed the Iraqi leader probably was 
personally involved.

``I've not seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I could say 
that,'' Rumsfeld said.

He added: ``We know he was giving $25,000 a family for anyone who would go 
out and kill innocent men, women and children. And we know of various other 
activities. But on that specific one, no, not to my knowledge.''

The Bush administration has asserted that Saddam's government had links to 
al-Qaida, the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden that masterminded the 
Sept. 11 attacks. And in various public statements over the past year or so 
administration officials have suggested close links.

Vice President Dick Cheney said on Sunday, for example, that success in 
stabilizing and democratizing Iraq would strike a major blow at the ``the 
geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but 
most especially on 9-11.''

And Tuesday, in an interview on ABC's ``Nightline,'' White House national 
security adviser Condoleezza Rice said that one of the reasons President Bush 
went to war against Saddam was because he posed a threat in ``a region from which 
the 9-11 threat emerged.''

In an appearance on NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' Cheney was asked whether he was 
surprised that more than two-thirds of Americans in the Washington Post poll 
would express a belief that Iraq was behind the attacks.

``No, I think it's not surprising that people make that connection,'' he 
replied.

Rice, asked about the same poll numbers, said, ``We have never claimed that 
Saddam Hussein had either direction or control of 9-11.''

``What we have said,'' she added, ``is that this is someone who supported 
terrorists, helped to train them, but most importantly that this is someone who, 
with his animus toward the United States, with his penchant for and capability 
to gain weapons of mass destruction, and his obvious willingness to use them, 
was a threat in this region that we were not prepared to tolerate.''

Cheney said he recalled being asked about an Iraq connection to 9-11 shortly 
after the attacks, and he recalled saying he knew of no evidence at that point.

``Subsequent to that, we have learned a couple of things,'' he said. ``We 
learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida 
that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s; that it involved 
training, for example, on BW (biological warfare) and CW (chemical warfare) -- 
that al-Qaida sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems, and 
involved the Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaida 
organization.''

At his Pentagon news conference, Rumsfeld reiterated his belief that U.S. and 
coalition forces in Iraq are making satisfactory progress in stabilizing the 
country.

He said it was an ``open question'' whether the United States would get the 
10,000 to 15,000 additional international troops it seeks to create a third 
multinational division for security duty in Iraq. The Pentagon has been hopeful 
of getting at least that many additional troops from Turkey, Pakistan or other 
friendly countries to beef up security and possibly to allow some of the 
130,000 U.S. troops there to go home next year.

``It would relieve some of the pressure on our forces,'' Rumsfeld said. 
``Whether or not there will be a (United Nations) resolution and whether or not -- 
even if there were a resolution -- we would get that number of troops is an 
open question.''

Rice acknowledged that if commitments for more troops are gained, it ``could 
be months'' before they were in place.

Gen. Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who appeared 
with Rumsfeld, said there are more than 210,000 coalition forces in Iraq: 
130,000 American troops, 24,000 British and other international troops, and 60,000 
Iraqi police, border guards and civil defense forces.