NE'IeWS
ita 4he battalion
^Terrorist al-Zarqawi vows
Bo assassinate Iraqi leader
By Todd Pitman
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
I BAGHDAD, Iraq — The suspected master-
ii|| m nd of beheadings and bombings threatened to
T assassinate Iraq’s prime minister, and U.S. offi-
Hciils claimed Wednesday that an airstrike against
Hal lideout of the al-Qaida-linked militant killed up
;tJ 20 of his followers.
I Militants focused their anger on Prime Minister
Nad Allawi and his government — the latest sign
tint the campaign of insurgent violence against
th U.S. occupation is unlikely to end with the
June 30 handover of power.
I Allawi brushed off the threats. The threat
against his life came in an audiotape purportedly
nfide by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-
Z rqawi, found Wednesday on an Islamic Web
si e. The message also denounced Allawi’s gov-
f eijiment as a tool of the “infidel foreigner.”
Another group warned Allawi against imposing
mirtial law in parts of Iraq, or else they would
trike with God’s might.”
Al-Zarqawi’s group claimed responsibility for
thb beheading of American hostage Nicholas Berg
lit month and Kim Sun-il, a South Korean whose
decapitated body was found Tuesday.
Hours after
EBATT/
Steps to Iraq’s transition to democracy
The U.S.-led occupation returns power to Iraq’s interim
administration, setting Iraqis on a road that Washington and its
allies hope will bring democratic rule in 18 months.
October
Referendum on
ratification of
proposed constitution
2005
June 30
Occupation authority
returns power to Iraqi
administration
2004
Jan. 31
Elections for Transi
tional Government
JJASONDJFMAMJJASON
July
Conference of
prominent Iraqis
chooses Interim
National Council
to advise interim
government
September
Voter
registration
begins
I| m’s body was
found, the U.S.
lilitary launched
its second attack
ainst al-Zarqawi
|in three days, with
an airstrike on
^Bllujah late
basl Tuesday,
a™ B A coalition
■Hilary official
said 20 foreign
fighters and ter-
|Hrists were
^^Blieved to have
Ben killed in the
idfe'ltrike against a SOURCE: United Nations
kifds use( j by a |_
versl0,r Brqawi’s group.
I Fallujah residents said the strike hit a parking
is nft Toi:, killing three people and wounding nine,
uck' according to hospital officials,
lartoii Ti ie al-Zarqawi recording warned Allawi that
inclu he had already survived “traps that we made for
you” but vowed that the group would continue
1 pfmning his assassination “until we make you
jpdrink from the same glass as Izzadine Saleem,”
Governing Council president killed by a car
■ bomb last month.
There was no way to authenticate the record-
V in but the voice sounded like al-Zarqawi, whose
B Tawhid and Jihad movement has been blamed for
^ m my of the bombings and assassinations that
phave killed hundreds of people, most of them
Iraqis, in recent months.
B The CIA was reviewing the tape.
I In an interview with the Italian newspaper II
Giornale, Allawi dismissed al-Zarqawi as a crimi-
^nal who would be caught and punished.
I “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi doesn’t threaten just
me, but the entire country,” Allawi told the news
paper, which released a copy of the interview
S IBednesday night.
I “He has killed hundreds of Iraqis, has sown
disorder and fear,” Allawi was quoted as saying.
“But he is just a criminal who must be captured
Bd tried. We are used to threats and we know how
to deal with them and how to win.”
In an interview Wednesday with Associated Press
Television News, U.S. Brig Gen. Mark Kimmitt said
many of the major attacks in Iraq are carried out by
al-Zarqawi’s forces, while former regime supporters
are responsible for smaller assaults.
“He is a very, very crafty leader of a large net
work that is conducting terrorist operations inside
this country,” Kimmitt said. “The people of Iraq
must understand they have a responsibility. They
bear a responsibility to making sure we take
Zarqawi and his network off of the street.”
Al-Zarqawi’s group killed Kim, a 33-year-old
South Korean, after the Seoul government reject
ed its demands to withdraw troops from Iraq. His
body was dumped on a road between Baghdad and
Fallujah, a hotbed of Islamic extremism.
Iraq’s interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer, said
Kim’s killing violated Iraqi and Islamic tradition
and “completely tarnishes Iraq.
“How could we rebuild our country if we can’t
guarantee the safety of people who come to help
build our country,” al-Yawer said on the U.S.-
funded TV station Al-Iraqiya.
Allawi told reporters Sunday that his govern
ment was considering martial rule in certain areas
to restore order.
A group of
masked militants
claiming to repre
sent resistance
groups in Iraq
warned against
that step in a
video aired
Wednesday night
on Al-Arabiya
television.
They said they
would “strike
with God’s
might” if Allawi
imposed emer
gency rule on
behalf of the
‘‘occupation
masters.”
U.S. and Iraqi officials are bracing for
stepped up violence ahead of the June 30 trans
fer of sovereignty, which marks the formal end
of the U.S.-led occupation.
Nevertheless, U.S. and Iraqi officials say the
handover schedule is on track. On Thursday, a cer
emony is planned to mark the official transfer of
the final 11 ministries to Iraqi control — including
the defense, interior, justice and electricity min
istries. Iraqis have already taken over the running
of the other 15 ministries.
The military said insurgents staged at least six
attacks on American convoys throughout Iraq on
Wednesday, wounding one U.S. soldier and a
civilian contractor.
Late Wednesday, insurgents hurled a hand
grenade at the newly refurbished Iraqi
Transportation Ministry, then engaged in a 10-
minute gunbattle with security guards, injuring at
least one, residents said.
Elsewhere, a roadside bomb in Baghdad killed a
policeman, a woman and her child, Iraqi police said.
Another roadside bomb in the northern city of
Mosul killed one Iraqi soldier and wounded four
others. In Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 60
miles west of Baghdad, gunmen killed two police
men and wounded a third in a drive-by shooting,
witnesses said.
Winter/spring
Constitutional
convention convenes
to draw up permanent
charter
December
Elections to
select
constitutionally
based
government
AP
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Justice Department rewriting advice
on prisoner abuse scandal interrogations
By Curt Anderson
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department
is rewriting its legal advice on how far U.S.
interrogators can go to pry information from
detainees, working under much different cir
cumstances from the writers of earlier memos
that appeared to justify torture.
The first memos were written not long after
the Sept. 11 attacks, while the new advice is
being crafted against the backdrop of prisoner
abuse in Iraq.
Justice Department lawyers will spend sev
eral weeks reviewing and revising several key
2002 documents, especially a 50-page memo
to the White House on Aug. 1, 2002, that crit
ics have characterized as setting the legal tone
for the mistreatment of prisoners at the Abu
Ghraib prison.
“The reason the original memo was so
damaging was that it was consistent with a pat
tern of conduct from Afghanistan to
Guantanamo Bay to Iraq,” Jonathan Turley, a
constitutional law professor at George
Washington University, said Wednesday.
A day after releasing hundreds of pages of
legal memos on the terror war. Bush adminis
tration officials reiterated that even though
President Bush signed a declaration in 2002
saying he had the authority to ignore interna
tional rules for treatment of captives, no orders
were given to torture or mistreat prisoners.
The unusual decision to release the memos
and disclose that some were being revised came
amid intense political pressure from Democrats
and other critics stemming from the Iraq and
Afghan abuses. Yet no Bush administration
officials flatly said the memos were wrong.
Current and former Justice Department
officials rejected criticism that the Aug. 1
memo, signed by then-Assistant Attorney
General Jay Bybee, laid a legal foundation for
torture. They said that the memo’s sections
along such lines never became administration
policy and that no detainees had been mis
treated at Guantanamo Bay.
They also said that no Justice Department
memo on interrogations addressed the war in
Iraq, which the administration determined was
governed by the Geneva Conventions and that
treaty’s rules for treatment of prisoners of war.
One of the most controversial sections of
the Bybee memo that appears targeted for
change or removal is entitled “The President’s
Commander-in-Chief Power.” Over the next
nine pages, Bybee lays out arguments that a
key U.S. anti-torture law would be unconstitu
tional “if it impermissibly encroached on the
president’s constitutional power to conduct a
military campaign.”
“One of the core functions of the com
mander in chief is that of capturing, detaining,
and interrogating members of the enemy,” the
Bybee memo said.
Critics say that reasoning goes too far.
Some say it would give the president absolute
authority in the waging of war.
“The administration has shown a stunning
disregard for the law, resorting time and
again to saying ’we are at war,”’ said Sen.
Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. “We are not
under martial law in this country. The laws
and the Constitution are not suspended
because we are at war.”
Democrats on Capitol Hill are pushing to
secure release of more Bush administration
documents, with some in the House calling
for a special committee to investigate abuses
at Abu Ghraib.
“We can’t get to the bottom of this unless
there is a clear picture of what happened at the
top,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, senior
Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
It is clear that, in a presidential election
year, photos of U.S. personnel abusing prison
ers in Iraq made the conclusions of the post-
Sept. 1 1 memos untenable for the Bush admin
istration, legal experts say.
General suggests U.S. military
dominance of skies may decrease
By John J. Lumpkin
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The suc
cess of the Indian air force
against American fighter planes
in a recent exercise suggests
other countries may soon be able
to threaten U.S. military domi
nance of the skies, a top Air
Force general said Wednesday.
“We may not be as far ahead
of the rest of the world as we
thought we were,” said Gen.
Hal M. Hornburg, the chief of
Air Combat Command, which
oversees U.S. fighter and
bomber wings.
The U.S.-India joint exer
cise, “Cope India,” took place
in February near Gwalior in
central, India. It pitted some F-
15C Eagle fighters from the 3rd
Wing at Elmendorf Air Force
Base, Alaska, in mock combat
against Indian MiG, Sukhoi
and Mirage fighters.
The F-15Cs are the Air
Force’s primary air superiority
aircraft. The Indian fighters, of
Russian and French design, are
the type of planes U.S. fighters
would most likely face in any
overseas conflict.
We may not be
as far ahead of the
rest of the world as
we thought we
were.
— Gen. Hal M. Hornburg
chief of Air Combat Command
Hornburg, speaking to
reporters, called the results of
the exercise “a wake-up call”
in some respects, but he
declined to provide details,
other than to suggest the Indian
air force scored several unex
pected successes against the
American planes.
For the last 15 years, the
U.S. military has enjoyed
almost total command of the air
during conflicts. A few fighters
and fighter-bombers have gone
down, usually victims of sur-
face-to-air missile fire, but in
general, American planes have
been able to target enemy
ground forces at will.
In the most recent invasion
of Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s air
force stayed grounded.
New tactics, better Russian
fighters like the Su-30, and a
new generation of surface-to-
air missiles mean that U.S.
dominance could be ending,
said Loren Thompson, who fol
lows military issues for the
Lexington Institute, a
Washington think tank.
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