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03/08/2006:

"Developments in Iraq, March 7"

* KHALIS - A car bomb killed three Iraqi soldiers and wounded one other in the town of Khalis, north east of Baghdad, the Iraqi army said.
* BAGHDAD - Six civilians were wounded when two car bombs parked on the side of the road were detonated in northern and northeastern Baghdad, police said. The target of the explosions was not clear, they said.
* BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb exploded in the New Baghdad district in the east of the capital, police said. There were no casualties.
BAQUBA - Gunmen killed three members of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's office in Baquba, police and hospital sources said. Two other members were wounded.
BAGHDAD - Three mortar rounds landed on the headquarters of the National Dialogue Front, a Sunni Arab party headed by Salih al-Mutlak. No casualties were reported.
KIRKUK - Three students and a soldier were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded as an Iraqi army patrol drove by Kirkuk University in central Kirkuk, 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
HAWIJA - A policeman was killed and another wounded in a drive-by shooting on the Kirkuk-Hawija highway, 60 km (40 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said.
BAGHDAD - Five civilians were wounded when a car bomb exploded in southern Baghdad, police said. The target of the explosion was not clear.
BAGHDAD - A civilian was killed and his wife was wounded when a car bomb struck at a U.S. patrol in western Baghdad, police said.
BAQUBA - A car bomb killed one civilian and wounded three police officers. The policemen had arrived at the scene after gunmen had killed a policeman on a patrol.
HILLA - Three traffic policemen and four civilians were wounded when a car bomb went off in central Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad. Another car bomb exploded in northern Hilla but no casualties were reported.
BALAD - A policeman was wounded when four mortar rounds landed in and around Balad police station in Balad, 90 km (55 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
BAIJI - Three policemen were killed and four were wounded when gunmen attacked their patrol in the oil refinery city of Baiji, 180 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
TIKRIT - A Sunni shrine was destroyed on Monday when gunmen planted bombs inside it in the city of Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
alertnet.org


Rumsfeld Says Media Exaggerating Iraqi Civilian Deaths
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today presented an upbeat report of the conflict in Iraq and said he agrees with the commander of the U.S.-led coalition, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., that the news media has exaggerated the number of civilian casualties in the conflict.

Rumsfeld said that while insurgents are "obviously trying to ignite a civil war," Iraqi security forces have "taken the lead in controlling the situation" and the Iraqi government has taken "a number of key steps that have had a calming effect in the situation."

But the news media in the United States and abroad has misreported the number of Iraqi civilians that have been killed and the number of mosques that have come under attack, Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference.


Iraq Weapons -- Made in Iran?

Intelligence Officials Say Weapons Responsible for Increasing U.S. Deaths in Iraq

March 6, 2006 — - U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.

They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops' strongest armor.

What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures -- certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.

"The signature is the same because they are exactly the same in production," says explosives expert Kevin Barry. "So it's the same make and model."

U.S. officials say roadside bomb attacks against American forces in Iraq have become much more deadly as more and more of the Iran-designed and Iran-produced bombs have been smuggled in from the country since last October.

"I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there," says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. "I think it's very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops."

OH ok. Forget the nukes, let's attack them anyway.


US envoy to Iraq: 'We have opened the Pandora's box'
The US ambassador to Baghdad conceded yesterday that the Iraq invasion had opened a Pandora's box of sectarian conflicts which could lead to a regional war and the rise of religious extremists who "would make Taliban Afghanistan look like child's play".

Zalmay Khalilzad broke with the Bush administration's generally upbeat orthodoxy to present a stark profile of a volatile situation in danger of sliding into chaos.

Mr Khalilzad told the Los Angeles Times Iraq had been pulled back from the brink of civil war after the February 22 bombing of a Shia shrine in Samarra. However, another similar incident would leave Iraq "really vulnerable" to that happening, he said. "We have opened the Pandora's box and the question is, what is the way forward?" He added that the best approach was to build bridges between religious and ethnic communities.