Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris

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