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03/25/2006:

"Battle for Baghdad 'has already started'"

The battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims for control of Baghdad has already started, say Iraqi political leaders who predict fierce street fighting will break out as each community takes over districts in which it is strongest.

"The fighting will only stop when a new balance of power has emerged," Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader, said. "Sunni and Shia will each take control of their own area." He said sectarian cleansing had already begun.

Many Iraqi leaders now believe that civil war is inevitable but it will be confined, at least at first, to the capital and surrounding provinces where the population is mixed. "The real battle will be the battle for Baghdad where the Shia have increasing control," said one senior official who did not want his name published. "The army will disintegrate in the first moments of the war because the soldiers are loyal to the Shia, Sunni or Kurdish communities and not to the government." He expected the Americans to stay largely on the sidelines.
independent.co.uk


More than 3,000 families fled due to sectarian conflict, government says.
BAGHDAD, 21 March (IRIN) - The Iraqi Ministry of Immigration and Displacement said on Tuesday that 3,705 families had been displaced in the country, as a result of the ongoing sectarian violence.

It erupted following the 22 February bombing of a Shi'ite shrine, Al-Askariya, in Samarra, some 120 km north of Baghdad.

The attack on the Al-Askariya shrine spawned days of reprisal attacks between the country's two major Muslim sects, the Shi'ites and the Sunnis. At least 400 people were killed and dozens of mosques were damaged and destroyed, according to figures released last week by the Interior Ministry.

Sattar Nawroz, the spokesman for the Ministry of Immigration and Displacement, said that most of the displaced families went to the southern city of Najaf.

About 1,000 families had descended there from Baghdad's restive western neighbourhoods, and from the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk as well as from Diyala, north-east of Baghdad.

The second largest number of the displaced families, 615, Nawroz added, have fled to the centre of Baghdad, from the capital's western and northern suburbs.


Aid agencies unable to enter Samarra
BAGHDAD, 22 March (IRIN) - Aid agencies say thay have been prevented from entering the city of Samarra, in central Iraq, where a major US and Iraqi military operation is underway.

"Our convoys sent on Sunday and Monday have been prevented from entering the city by US troops and our information from inside is that families are without food, power and potable water, particularly because they cannot leave their homes," noted Abdel Hameed, a spokesperson for the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS).
This, they say, has left hundreds of families without medical assistance and food supplies.

"Innocent people and especially children are suffering from a lack of supplies in and on the outskirts of Samarra," said Muhammad al-Daraji, Director of the Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq (MHRI).

"US and Iraqi military groups have prevented the entrance of local NGOs as well as the media to show the reality of human rights violation inside it," he added.


Pentagon plans for an Iraqi civil war
WASHINGTON - Pentagon and military officials say Iraq's not fighting a civil war yet, but warn that Iraqi security forces and the government could still collapse, dragging the country into one. So the U.S. military is drafting a series of contingency plans to deal with that very ominous possibility.

Military officials tell NBC News the first objective, however, is to head off a civil war. The U.S. military hopes to keep Iraqi security forces from taking sides in the sectarian violence by pressuring the Iraqi government to crack down on any rogue elements within the police or military.

The second option: U.S. forces could again be sent into combat against sectarian militias, which military officials say would require an increase in the number of American soldiers and Marines in Iraq.


Expanding bases put focus on U.S. in Iraq
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq - The concrete goes on forever, vanishing into the noonday glare, 2 million cubic feet of it, a mile-long slab that's now the home of up to 120 U.S. helicopters, a "heli-park" as good as any back in the States. At another giant base, al-Asad in Iraq's western desert, the 17,000 troops and workers come and go in a kind of bustling American town, with a Burger King, Pizza Hut and a car dealership, stop signs, traffic regulations and young bikers clogging the roads.

At a third hub down south, Tallil, they're planning a new mess hall, one that will seat 6,000 hungry airmen and soldiers for chow.

Are the Americans here to stay? Air Force mechanic Josh Remy is sure of it as he looks around Balad.

"I think we'll be here forever," the 19-year-old airman from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., told a visitor to his base.


Iraq on its own to rebuild, U.S. says
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The head of the U.S.-led program to rebuild Iraq said Thursday that the Iraqi government can no longer count on U.S. funds and must rely on its own revenues and other foreign aid, particularly from Persian Gulf nations.

"The Iraqi government needs to build up its capability to do its own capital budget investment," Daniel Speckhard, director of the U.S. Iraq Reconstruction Management Office, said.

The burden of paying for reconstruction poses an extraordinary challenge for a country that needs tens of billions of dollars for repairing its infrastructure at the same time it's struggling to pay its bills.

Iraq's deputy finance minister, Kamal Field al-Basri, said it was "reasonable" for the United States to sharply cut back its reconstruction efforts after spending about $21 billion.

"We should be very much dependent on ourselves," al-Basri said.