Snippets
- Earlier today Ambassador Bremer met with a Turkish business delegation, led by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey. The delegation, which also includes the Turkish ambassador to Iraq, are in Baghdad for the day to look at the foreign investment climate and ways in which Turkey can further contribute to the reconstruction of Iraq. Turkey has already pledged $50 million at the Madrid donors’ conference, placing it among the top 15 contributors.
- Two targets, Mufook Sadiq (ph) and Salim Kudar Mutab (ph), turned themselves in to coalition authorities last night. Sadiq is a suspected Black Eagle movement member, a terrorist group in the northern area, and Mutab (ph) is a suspected bomb maker.
- Well, the memo itself says -- the author of the memo himself says that he accomplished 25 operations since he’s been here in Iraq.
It is clear that the type of techniques that we have seen in certain of these attacks, such as what we’ve seen at the north gate, at the Assassin’s Gate, perhaps in Erbil, perhaps down -- the assassination of Hakim, perhaps the attack on the U.N. building -- all of these have the fingerprints, as we have said, month after month, and hallmarks of al Qaeda, fingerprints of al Qaeda and other foreign fighters. So we can’t rule out that the 25 operations claimed inside that document are untrue. And in fact that just gives us more and more evidence of these -- that al Qaeda is in fact conducting operations, or people who would like to work with al Qaeda are operating inside this country.
- Yeah, we are persuaded that Zarqawi was the author of this letter. It is our understanding that this letter was being taken by a courier outside this country for delivery abroad. And it is our intent and our -- certainly our hope that -- in the near future that this letter can be declassified.
- We understand that Grand Ayatollah Sistani is currently in a safe location. We do not believe he is being held by coalition forces. He is certainly not being held by coalition forces, but he is being protected by his own people.
- On your first question, the November 15th agreement is very explicit: sovereignty will be handed over to the Iraqi people on July 1. June 30th will culminate the effort by which we develop a transitional national assembly; that will be done by June 1. And then during the month of June that transitional national assembly will select an executive branch, if you will, that will assume power on July 1. As I said, that’s explicit in the November 15th agreement.
What happens in 2005 is a constitutional convention for the permanent constitution of Iraq and then elections at the end of 2005 for the next, what we call the permanent government of Iraq, rather than the transitional government, that will take office this summer. That will be at the end of 2005 and they will begin to take power in 2006.
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