One of Ours

Arab television and The Associated Press aired video showing the bodies of small children in a truck full of bodies and people digging graves as they quoted witnesses and Iraqi officials who discussed the attack...

...at 3 a.m. local time Wednesday, coalition ground forces conducted an operation against a suspected foreign fighter safe house in the open desert. The house was 25 kilometers from the Syrian border, 85 kilometers southwest of Husaybah (search), military officials said.

Coalition forces came under hostile fire and called for support from the air. After the strike, coalition forces recovered numerous weapons, foreign passports, a SATCOM radio and two million Iraqi and Syrian dinars, military officials said.

The attack killed about 40 people in the house, officials said.

A Coalition Press Information Center official said that since it was carried out during a raid on a suspected safe house, the air strike would therefore be "within the rules of engagement."

That official reiterated that the objective was a suspected hideout, and had no information about a wedding party...


Lt. Col Ziyad al-Jbouri, deputy police chief of the city of Ramadi (search), said between 42 and 45 people died in the attack, which took place about 2:45 a.m. in a remote desert area near the border with Syria and Jordan. He said those killed included 15 children and 10 women.

Dr. Salah al-Ani, who works at a hospital in Ramadi, put the death toll at 45.

Dozens of soldiers -- other than the seven military police reservists who have been charged -- were involved in the abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army to hide it...

"There's definitely a cover-up," the witness, Sgt. Samuel Provance, said. "People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet."

[...]

Provance, now stationed in Germany, ran the top secret computer network used by military intelligence at the prison.

He said that while he did not see the actual abuse take place, the interrogators with whom he worked freely admitted they directed the MPs' rough treatment of prisoners.

"Anything [the MPs] were to do legally or otherwise, they were to take those commands from the interrogators," he said.

[...]

Maj. Gen. George Fay, the Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, was assigned by the Pentagon to investigate the role of military intelligence in the abuse at the Iraq prison.

Fay started his probe on April 23, but Provance said when Fay interviewed him, the general seemed interested only in the military police, not the interrogators, and seemed to discourage him from testifying.

Provance said Fay threatened to take action against him for failing to report what he saw sooner, and the sergeant fears he will be ostracized for speaking out...

From the look of its freshly renovated offices, and on paper, Iraq's Ministry of Health appears to be the successful poster child for US plans to hand back control of Iraq to Iraqis.

Salaries for health workers have increased and hospitals are being refurbished...

The question facing Iraq's freshly reformed ministries is whether the upward trend of improvements - spurred by huge infusions of cash, expertise, and US-driven reorganization - can outpace continued insecurity and a culture of corruption.

[...]

...Ministers now have control of eight of Iraq's 25 ministries, with more being transferred each week as officials gear up for the June 30 handover of sovereignty.

Health officials like to weigh their spending today against that of Saddam Hussein, whose 2002 health budget of $16 million for 25 million Iraqis amounted to just 64 cents per person. The 2004 budget is $948 million, with an additional $793 million coming directly from the US - all told, a 100-fold increase.

The influx is making a difference at the Al Kadhimiya Teaching Hospital in northwest Baghdad, where large projects are focused on revamping a steam-pipe system critical to sterilization, improving sewer networks, and installing new boilers.

Some $3.5 million has been set aside for the projects, due to begin in a couple of months. The health ministry is spending more than $30,000 per month for maintenance at this facility alone. Monthly salaries have shot from $5 to between $200 and $500.

"We have hope, but slowly," says hospital director Qais Abdulwahab. "Money is key."

Jalal Abed Ali, a doctor at Al Kadhimiya, says he is optimistic, though he has yet to see much improvement. "I have a feeling inside that things are in the right hands, but it needs time," he says. "Germany took two years to reunify. Iraq needs more than that, because of physical and psychological damage."

During the Hussein era, he says, guards used to burn medical supplies, deliberately keeping national stocks low to highlight the negative aspects of UN sanctions. Storekeepers kept drugs until well past their expiry date.

..."[Iraqis] have become more optimistic, and are increasingly energized."

...Officials also say they are on track with plans to halve high infant mortality rates by 2005.

[...]

..."People think: If the Americans are here, and things are so weak, what will happen when they leave?"

..."It's true there is occupation, but ... we feel that better is coming," says Hamid al-Amiri, deputy director at Al Kadhimiya hospital. "It's the term 'occupation' we want to disappear. But we prefer occupation to Saddam Hussein."