Iraq analysis

[Al-khiyal]

HIT, Iraq - - Soon after Specialist Michael Potocki was shot and killed in June, the soldiers in his platoon agreed on their goal for the months ahead: to survive and make it home alive.

Survival may be the only thing the troops here agree on. The first death of a comrade in battle is always an emotional shock, and the views from the foxhole here are probably as varied as the 34 soldiers.

Still, in this hostile stretch of western Iraq, some of the troops have begun to wonder if the presence of U.S. forces here is worth the cost in American lives.

The vision at the top is that the forces here are a small but vital part of the counterinsurgency campaign, which requires patience and continued sacrifice until newly minted Iraqi forces are ready to take over.

"The coalition needs to leave, but not too fast," says Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Graves, who commands Task Force 1-36, the army unit responsible for securing the town.

Staff Sergeant Ryan Poetsch, who did a previous tour in Baghdad and serves in Potocki's platoon, acknowledges that he does not always have the big picture. But he does have a view from the streets in Hit and questions the strategy.

"As a soldier, I am going to do whatever we got to do," he said. "As a personal opinion, I don't think we need to be in this city, period. How much money and how many soldiers is it going to take when these people don't want our help? They just don't. We don't even know who we can trust."

Hit is a tough assignment. The predominantly Sunni town of some 65,000 sits astride the Euphrates in Anbar Province. Saddam Hussein hid in the nearby palm groves soon after escaping from Baghdad in April 2003, a telling indication that the town contained more than a few supporters of the old order.

The overstretched U.S. military got off on the wrong foot here.

In the year before Graves's task force arrived last February, an array of American units rotated through the area, a pattern that made it more difficult for the United States to cultivate relationships with the locals.

The current task force's deployment will last a year, but the mechanized unit has only some 600 troops - far fewer than some of its predecessor units. Many of the city's residents believe that the surest way to put an end to the roadside bombings, sniper attacks and mortar rounds would be for the Americans to deprive the insurgents of their target by leaving.

Graves seems to have the perfect résumé for the job.

A native of Killeen, Texas, he did a stint on a task force that studied the lessons of the Iraq invasion and served a previous tour as the army wrestled with insurgent-infested Ramadi. Lean, taciturn and focused, he often jogs around the perimeter of his camp on Hit's outskirts, in part to help him think about the decisions ahead.

Hit's police force was overrun by the insurgents last year, and Graves has told the town elders that U.S. forces will not leave Hit before a new police force is recruited, trained and on the streets.

Soon after a July police recruiting drive ended, he got into an armored Humvee and headed downtown to hear what the imams were saying at the local mosques. An interpreter scribbled down a sermon blasting from a loudspeaker. It implored the faithful not to cooperate with their occupiers.

Still, the colonel says he is making headway.

"Given where I was in Ramadi, I see progress," he said. "In January 2005 we could not get anybody in Ramadi to participate in the political process. Now you have the citizens of Hit who at least understand that process even if they don't necessarily agree with it."

A 34-year-old marine reservist from Detroit, Major Brent Lilly, leads the civil affairs team. A practicing Muslim who speaks some Arabic, his goal is to improve the city's ailing infrastructure, show the Iraqis that the Americans can be trusted and pick up some useful intelligence along the way.

The military has distributed $100,000 for sewage, water distribution and other projects, and has plans to spend much more if security improves. Lilly, however, is under no illusion about the difficulty of winning over the city's residents.

"Over all, they just tolerate us," he said. "We're here, and they have no other recourse but to tolerate us. The great majority want us to go home."

American GIs focus on survival and nurse doubts in Iraq

[Al-khiyal]

Another U.S. soldier killed in Iraq

[Al-khiyal]

Baghdad - A senior Kurdish official said Sunday that authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan would be willing to hand over suspected collaborators in the 1988 massacre of over 100,000 Kurds in Anfal if asked to do so by court trying Saddam Hussein and six others.

The minister of the interior in the Kurdistan government, Othman al-Hajj Mahmoud, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that no warrants had yet been issued for the arrest of suspects in Kurdish areas.

Kurdish authorities had issued a pardon in 1991 covering all those who participated in the Anfal massacre, blamed on the regime of Saddam Hussein

Kurdish authorities ready to hand over suspects in Anfal case

[Al-khiyal]

Two more U.S. Marines killed in Al Anbar

[Al-khiyal]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A popular Iraqi soccer player who was a member of the country's Olympic team has been kidnapped in Baghdad, police said.

Ghanim Ghudayer, 22, considered one of the best players in Baghdad's Air Force Club, was kidnapped on Sunday evening by unknown assailants in the al-Amil neighborhood where he lives in the western part of the capital, police 1st Lt. Mutaz Salahiddin said.

Some of the kidnappers were dressed in military uniform, Salahiddin said.

Samir Kadhim, head of the Air Force Club, said Ghudayer had been preparing to go to a training session when he was intercepted by the assailants in two vehicles.

Iraqi sports officials and athletes have frequently faced threats, kidnappings and assassination attempts.

In July, Iraq's national soccer coach, Akram Ahmed Salman, resigned after receiving death threats against him and his family.

Earlier that month, unknown gunmen kidnapped the chairman of Iraq's National Olympic Committee and at least 30 other officials, including the presidents of the taekwondo and boxing federations, in a brazen daylight raid on a sports conference in the heart of Baghdad.

The abduction came after Iraq's national wrestling coach, a Sunni, was killed in a Shiite district of Baghdad.

Soccer is popular in Iraq, where the national team's successes in the past three years have provided a joyous distraction from the daily violence.

Iraqi Olympic soccer player kidnapped

[Al-khiyal]

Two British soldiers were wounded when a roadside bomb hit their convoy near the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Monday, a British military spokesman said.

Major Charlie Burbridge said the two soldiers had been evacuated after the attack around 15 km (nine miles) north of Basra. No more details were immediately available.

Britain has some 7,000 troops in mainly Shi'ite southern Iraq, which is much calmer than central and northern Iraq.

Bomb wounds two British soldiers in southern Iraq

[Al-khiyal]

"It is with immense sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm the deaths of two British soldiers in Iraq today, Monday 4 September 2006.

The soldiers died following an attack on a British patrol near the town of Ad Dayr, north of Basrah City. The patrol was subject to an attack by a roadside bomb and small arms fire.

One other British soldier was seriously injured, and a further soldier suffered minor injuries. Both have been evacuated for emergency medical care and taken by helicopter to a British Field Hospital at Shaibah Logistics Base. Further details will be issued once the next of kin have been informed."

Two British soldiers killed in Iraq