Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris
Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris
Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris
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Revue <strong>de</strong> Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro <strong>de</strong> la Prensa-Basin Ôzeti<br />
After effectively voting against the Iraq occupation<br />
last November; after <strong>de</strong>nouncing it in successive polls;<br />
after seeing the Bush administration reject its own re¬<br />
view panel's call for a shift to diplomacy; after the<br />
touted "surge" led to more ofthe same; after the shock<br />
ofcurrent oil prices ma<strong>de</strong> the real Bush agenda in Iraq<br />
plainer ever; <strong>and</strong> after Dick Cheney <strong>and</strong> George W.<br />
Bush ma<strong>de</strong> the mad prospect of attack on Iran seem<br />
possible the American public has sunk into a dis¬<br />
pirited, <strong>and</strong> perhaps guilt-induced, <strong>de</strong>tachment from<br />
the entire mess. (Again last week, Congressional<br />
Democrats, <strong>de</strong>bating appropriations, dared look the<br />
Pentagon in the eye <strong>and</strong> promptly blinked.) No<br />
such <strong>de</strong>tachment is possible here in Turkey.<br />
Before Bush's war changed everything in this re¬<br />
gion, Turkish hopes were high. An expansive Euro¬<br />
pean Union beckoned. Turks were poised to play a<br />
historic role as the bridge between Islam <strong>and</strong> the<br />
2007 is <strong>de</strong>adliest year<br />
for U.S. troops in Iraq<br />
6 <strong>de</strong>aths in single day bring total to 852<br />
By Damien Cave<br />
BAGHDAD: Six American soldiers<br />
were killed in three separate attacks<br />
Monday, the military said Tuesday, tak¬<br />
ing the number of <strong>de</strong>aths this year to<br />
852 <strong>and</strong> making 2007 the <strong>de</strong>adliest year<br />
of the war for U.S. troops.<br />
Military officials also said that nine<br />
Iranians being held in Iraq would soon<br />
be released, including two <strong>de</strong>tained<br />
during a January raid of a consulate of¬<br />
fice in Erbil. The potential release ofthe<br />
Iranians may reflect American approv¬<br />
al of some signs that Iran is cooperating<br />
with <strong>de</strong>m<strong>and</strong>s that it stanch the flow of<br />
bomb-making materials into Iraq.<br />
Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, a mili¬<br />
tary spokesman, said that recently dis¬<br />
covered caches of components used to<br />
make <strong>de</strong>adly roadsi<strong>de</strong> bombs known as<br />
explosively formed projectiles, or EFPs,<br />
"do not appear to have arrived here in<br />
Iraq after those pledges were ma<strong>de</strong>,"<br />
suggesting that Iran has limited explo¬<br />
sives trafficking across the bor<strong>de</strong>r after<br />
promising to do so.<br />
American comm<strong>and</strong>ers have stopped<br />
short of <strong>de</strong>claring that Iran has in fact<br />
complied with the United States' <strong>de</strong>¬<br />
m<strong>and</strong>s, <strong>and</strong> Smith said Tuesday that the<br />
release of the nine Iranian prisoners<br />
was not a diplomatic reward but rather<br />
the perfunctory end to a criminal inves¬<br />
tigation. "These individuals have no<br />
continuing value, nor do they pose a fur¬<br />
ther threat to Iraqi security," he said.<br />
Smith did not say why the two Irani¬<br />
ans captured in January at an Iranian<br />
consulate office in Erbil were held for<br />
nine months, after Iran insisted that they<br />
were harmless government workers.<br />
But Iraqi officials welcomed the an¬<br />
nouncement. Mohammed al Haj<br />
Hamud, Iraq's <strong>de</strong>puty foreign minister,<br />
West. But then they found that, in the "us-againstthem"<br />
war on terror, no such bridge was wanted.<br />
Europe got nervous about Turks already in its cities,<br />
<strong>and</strong> lately European countries have taken actions<br />
Turkey regards as friendly to the Kurdish rebels it is<br />
fighting. Now come warnings that, if Turkey re¬<br />
sponds to its ma<strong>de</strong>-in-Washington terror threat ex¬<br />
actly as Washington does "to strike out, somehow"<br />
then Turkey can kiss EU admission goodbye.<br />
The question is sharper in the United States: How<br />
much higher can the rubble pile of Bush's wreckage<br />
mount before Americans emerge from the stupor of<br />
shame to stop him?<br />
James Carroll's column appears regularly in The<br />
Boston Globe.<br />
said the release would "improve the re¬<br />
lations between the three countries" of<br />
Iraq, Iran <strong>and</strong> the United States before<br />
another round of planned meetings on<br />
security. "We want good relations with<br />
Iran <strong>and</strong> for Iran to avoid conducting<br />
any actions insi<strong>de</strong> Iraq," he said. "Àt the<br />
same time, the Iraqi government is keen<br />
to maintain its relationship with its first<br />
<strong>and</strong> strongest ally, the United States of<br />
America."<br />
Five of the American soldiers killed<br />
on Monday died in two roadsi<strong>de</strong> bomb<br />
attacks near Kirkuk, Smith said. A sixth<br />
soldier died Monday during combat op¬<br />
erations in Anbar Province, according<br />
to a military statement.<br />
The <strong>de</strong>aths come only a few days<br />
after the military announced a steep<br />
drop in the rate ofAmerican <strong>de</strong>aths this<br />
year. In October, 38 American service<br />
members died in Iraq, the third-lowest<br />
monthly tally since 2003, according to<br />
Iraq Casualty Count, a Web site that<br />
tracks military <strong>de</strong>aths. The total in No¬<br />
vember, if the current pace continues,<br />
would be higher but still far below the<br />
war's average of 69 American military<br />
<strong>de</strong>aths per month.<br />
Despite the <strong>de</strong>cline, American com¬<br />
m<strong>and</strong>ers acknowledged that 2007 would<br />
be far <strong>de</strong>adlier than the second-worst<br />
year, 2004, when 849 Americans died,<br />
many ofthem in major battles for control<br />
of insurgent strongholds like Falluja.<br />
Military officials attribute the rise<br />
this year to an exp<strong>and</strong>ed troop presence<br />
during the so-called surge, which<br />
brought more than 165,000 troops to<br />
Iraq, <strong>and</strong> sent units out of large bases<br />
<strong>and</strong> into more dangerous communities.<br />
Comm<strong>and</strong>ers maintain that <strong>de</strong>spite the<br />
high cost in terms of lives lost, the<br />
strategy has brought improved security<br />
to the country <strong>and</strong> "tactical momentum"<br />
that could stabilize Iraq permanently.<br />
But violence in the country contin¬<br />
ues. Military officials announced Tues¬<br />
day the discovery of a mass grave hold¬<br />
ing 22 bodies in a rural area north of<br />
Falluja. The grave was found Saturday<br />
during a joint American-Iraqi operation,<br />
in the Lake Tharthar area, a <strong>de</strong>solate<br />
rural area near the site of another grave,<br />
holding 25 bodies, that was found less<br />
than a month ago.<br />
Local police officials said the bodies<br />
were dumped in <strong>and</strong> around an aban¬<br />
doned building.<br />
"Some were buried in wells <strong>and</strong> some<br />
were left in rooms used as prisons," said<br />
a police officer who helped clear the<br />
grave. "These corpses are part of what<br />
we expect to find more of in the future."<br />
Just south of Kirkuk, the police said<br />
that clashes with Iraqi <strong>and</strong> American<br />
forces on Tuesday left four gunmen<br />
<strong>de</strong>ad. In a separate inci<strong>de</strong>nt, gunmen at¬<br />
tacked <strong>and</strong> killed the mayor of small<br />
village about 50 kilometers, or 30 miles,<br />
south of Kirkuk, <strong>and</strong> woun<strong>de</strong>d his son,<br />
as they drove to a neighboring town.<br />
A member of the governing council<br />
in Mosul was also assassinated in a<br />
neighborhood on the city's outskirts,<br />
the authorities said, <strong>and</strong> six policemen<br />
died when they were ambushed while<br />
driving to work.<br />
In Baghdad, the police found four<br />
<strong>de</strong>ad bodies, two east of the Tigris<br />
River, two to the west. A roadsi<strong>de</strong> bomb<br />
explo<strong>de</strong>d near an American patrol near<br />
Zawra park in western Baghdad, <strong>and</strong> a<br />
second bomb explo<strong>de</strong>d in the central<br />
Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada, an<br />
Interior Ministry official said.<br />
He said it was unclear if there were<br />
any casualties.<br />
South of the capital, in Latafiya, a<br />
bomb targeting a joint Iraqi-American<br />
foot patrol killed one Iraqi soldier.<br />
North ofHilla, the authorities found the<br />
body of a man in his 20s floating in a<br />
small river. He had been stabbed to<br />
<strong>de</strong>ath.<br />
57