| AP provides this synopsis of the day's news... |
- Oil from Iraq's southern fields began flowing through pipelines Wednesday for the first time since the war, and power at last was restored to parts of Baghdad. The south oil fields had been among the first installations secured when U.S. and British forces launched the ground war March 20. Coalition forces, aided by Iraqi oil workers, Wednesday fired up a gas-oil separation plant that sent oil to a pumping station and storage tank outside the southern city of Basra. "Our focus in restoring the oil is to give the biggest benefit to the Iraqi people," said Brig. Gen. Robert Crear, the top U.S. official charged with getting Iraq's oil production up and running. He said the southern Rumeila oil field, one of Iraq's largest, could be producing up to 1.1 million barrels a day in six to 15 weeks. The country's northern oil fields around Kirkuk remain out of production; when they are reopened, Crear said Iraq could move toward its prewar production of 2.8 million barrels a day, and provide crucial revenue for reconstruction.
- In the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, Wednesday was the climax of an emotional pilgrimage — peaceful so far — that has drawn an estimated 1 million Shiite Muslims. With Saddam Hussein's regime toppled, it was the first time since the 1970s that Iraq's Shiite majority could participate freely in the march to the cities' shrines. Thousands of the pilgrims took part in an anti- American demonstration Wednesday. Among the banners were some that read, "No to America, no to Israel, yes to Islam."
Demonstration by "thousands", from a pilgrimage of "up to a million" doesn't sound too daunting. Seems that not ALL Shiites are under the control of the Imams yet. We need to separate those that are from the mainstream, and work with the people that are happy we're there, and that they're free.
| We might also point out that all these people have the time to demonstrate — they don't appear to have jobs. Having an economy in which two out of three households aren't dependent on the gummint for food will bring down the level of participation in such frivolities. You know what they say about the Devil and idle hands. These are early-on problems, as predictable as looting (greater than expected) and revenge killings (fewer than expected, unless we've missed something). |
- American investigators were trying to figure out how hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars — possibly genuine, perhaps counterfeit — ended up in Iraq despite economic sanctions in place since 1990. The latest stash — $112 million — was found by Army civil affairs soldiers inside seven dog kennels (My emphasis - OP) in a wealthy neighborhood where top regime officials once lived, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday. The Times and the New York Post said four soldiers were under investigation in the alleged theft of about $900,000 of a huge stash of dollars found earlier in the same neighborhood. Some of the cash has been stumbled upon almost by accident.
- The intensive nationwide search by U.S. teams for banned weapons of mass destruction has yet to turn up conclusive evidence of chemical or biological weapons. Six Iraqi scientists working at Baghdad research institutions told The Associated Press they were ordered to destroy some bacteria and equipment and hide more in their homes before visits from U.N. weapons inspectors in the months leading up to the war. All the scientists said they were involved in civilian research projects and all said they knew of no programs for weapons of mass destruction. It was not clear why their materials, ostensibly for nonmilitary research, were ordered destroyed.
Nope, we don't know nuthin' 'bout no illegal programs, not us! We're just hapless folks workin' on a cure for the common cold.
But their accounts indicate the Saddam's regime may have had advance knowledge of at least some of the inspectors' visits, as the United States suspected, and that the regime was concerned about any material that could raise the suspicion of U.N. experts.
- A grim legacy of Saddam's regime was being dug out of shallow graves on the grounds of Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, where several bodies have been found buried face down, hands bound behind their backs and gunshot wounds to the head. "At least now we know they are dead, thanks be to God," said Saad al-Niami, an army colonel. "Our families can get rest now." Saddam's secret services used the prison as a detention center, said Gen. Hossam Hussein, commander of guards there. He said it was built for 800 prisoners, but held 1,200. Relatives said countless men were executed there during the final days of Saddam's teetering regime.
- The mood was dramatically different in a lucky batch of Baghdad neighborhoods - about one-fifth of the city — where power was restored for the first time in three weeks. Baghdad residents and the U.S. military have listed power as the capital's key need — to deter looting and help get a municipal administration back in operation.
- In Karbala and Najaf, huge throngs of Shiite pilgrims continued their observances. Some flailed their backs and inflicted cuts on their heads as they marched to the beat of drums. Among the anti-American demonstrators was Khudayer Abbas Musawi, a 25-year-old engineering student. "America came here not to free the Iraqi people but for oil," he said.
Wonder how one of Nancy Peloski's constituents got back to Iraq so fast! Actually, this is probably the line the Iranian backed Shiite Imams are taking to increase their following, hoping to institute an Islamic autocracy.
Such sentiment was not unanimous. Said Kathem Jasim Mohammed, a 50- year-old vendor,: "I want to thank Mr. Bush for breaking the prison Iraq was in." After midday prayers, the crowds began to diminish, although many pilgrims were expected to remain for observances Thursday in Karbala — site of the 7th-century martyrdom of Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Shiites were long suppressed by Saddam's ruling Sunni minority. Since Saddam fell, Shiites have been setting up local administrations, and religious leaders have emerged as key sources of political power.
I don't say we should come down hard on these leaders, but we need to keep a very careful eye on them. The last thing we need to have happen is to end one dictatorship and have an Islamic regime take its place.
| We do need to come down hard on their gunnies, though, and when we have an interim regime in place we have to keep pressure on them to clean the political vitriol out of the sermons. |
- Jay Garner, the retired U.S. general overseeing the postwar reconstruction, arrived Wednesday in Irbil, the administrative capital of Iraq's Kurdish region. It was Garner's second day in the region, where he has extensive contacts stemming from his direction of a U.S. military mission to protect Kurds who fled their homes when Saddam put down an uprising following the 1991 Gulf War. Asked at a news conference how soon life in Iraq could return to a semblance of normalcy, Garner said "Everything has to be done in a secure environment... security is getting better every day. In a very short order you'll see a change in the attitudes and the will of the people themselves," he added.
| Since he has experience in doing the same thing in the Kurdish territories, likely he knows what he's talking about. Kurdistan's a lot more successful than any UN-guided regime I can think of off the top of my head... |
- British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon toured the southern port city of Umm Qasr — becoming the highest-ranking British or U.S. politician to visit Iraq since the war. He shook hands with port workers and petted Buster a sniffer dog who has discovered several arms and drugs caches. Hoon said U.S. and British forces had not given up looking for Saddam, and speculated that the deposed leader was still in Iraq. "In the end, we don't know, but in my best judgment, he is," Hoon said.
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