Search Widens For Brits Captured In Iraq

Dozens of U.S. Humvees and Bradley fighting vehicles took positions around Sadr City at nightfall Wednesday as American forces pressed the search for five Britons kidnapped in a mock police raid that Iraqi officials said was carried by the Mahdi Army Shiite militia.

A secret incident report about the abductions, written by Najwa Fatih-Allah, the director general of the data processing center where the five Britons were seized, quotes Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, as saying the Mahdi Army "will be profoundly sorry" if it carried out the assault.

The militia is the armed wing of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political movement. The firebrand al-Sadr only recently returned to Iraq after about four months hiding in Iran, apparently to avoid trouble during the U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, as CBS New chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports, a big part of the U.S.-Iraq security crackdown involves handing over more power to the Iraqi Army. But with so many officers who served under Saddam Hussein now filling the top army ranks, Iraq's prime pinister admits there is a real threat of a coup.

"There are some of them who are still loyal to the previous regime and they are making problems," Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki told Logan in an exclusive interview. "Sometimes they even violate the security of military operations."

"I am not afraid but I have to watch the army because those still loyal to the previous regime may start planning coups," added al-Maliki. "Those people don't believe in democracy and for that reason we are monitoring the status of the army very carefully."

Portions of the incident report about the abductions were read to The Associated Press on the telephone by a government official who did so only on condition of anonymity because the document was not for public distribution.

A top Interior Ministry official, who refused to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said suspicion immediately fell on the Mahdi Army because it was in control of the area and would have blocked such a massive operation by any other group.

Fatih-Allah's report to Finance Minister Bayan Jabr said four men in civilian clothing appeared at the center about 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, 15 minutes before the kidnapping.

The account said the four men claimed they were from the government anti-fraud commission and looked through each room in the center, then quickly left the building.

At about 11 a.m. dozens of men in army and police uniforms, the report said, burst into the building, disarmed guards and went directly into the room where the five Britons were working. The five were seized, rushed out of the building to 19 waiting four-wheel-drive vehicles and the convoy drove away to the east.

The building sits on a side street off Palestine Street, a major thoroughfare in eastern Baghdad and not far from Sadr City, a stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

In other developments:

A Sunni police chief praised by U.S. forces for clearing his city of insurgents has been arrested following an investigation into alleged murder, corruption and crimes against the Iraqi people, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

The United States will soon begin admitting a bigger trickle of the more than 2 million refugees who have fled Iraq, acknowledging for the first time the country may never be safe for some who have helped the U.S. there.

The U.S. military late Wednesday reported the deaths of three soldiers, two killed in a roadside bombing and one who died of a non-combat cause. The deaths raised to 119 the number of soldiers killed this month, the third-deadliest month of the war for U.S. troops.

The U.S. helicopter that crashed and killed two soldiers in Diyala province Monday was shot down by enemy fire, a senior U.S. military official said Wednesday. Brig. Gen. Perry Wiggins, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military believes the aircraft was brought down by small arms fire, and that the roadside bomb that killed a response team headed to the crash site was not the newer, armor piercing explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, that have killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers.

Several mortar rounds apparently targeting an American military base in the restive city of Fallujah missed their mark and landed instead on a court house and in a residential neighborhood, killing nine civilians and wounding 15 others, according to police and Dr. Anas al-Rawi, of Fallujah General Hospital.

The Islamic state of Iraq, an al Qaeda front group, has claimed responsibility for shooting down a U.S. helicopter in Diyala Province in a statement posted on a militant Web site. The claim could not be independently verified. The military did not say if the helicopter was shot down or had mechanical problems. On Tuesday, the U.S. military announced that a total of 10 American soldiers were killed in roadside bombings and the helicopter crash the day before (read more).

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[mh4cbs1]

It is CLEAR now that Cheney and Bush LIED us into this Iraq disaster, with fake WMDs, fake Aluminum tubes, fake Niger uranium, fake intelligence sources.

It is CLEAR that they EXPLOITED 9-11 with lies about Al Qaeda ties to Saddam and with all the fake color coded terror alerts.

It is CLEAR now that they seek a PERMANENT US military presence in Iraq, with permanent US military bases.

It is CLEAR that the US is pressuring the Iraqi parliament to pass an Oil Law that opens up the $21 TRILLION Oil Reserves to US corporations.

It is CLEAR now that the spineless corporate-owned Democrats have no plan to seek PEACE instead of endless War and Occupation.

It is CLEAR now that the Iraq invasion and occupation fuels hate, resentment, Islamic fundamentalism, and terrorists(just like the 1953 CIA coup to install the brutal Shah of Iran to regain control over Iran's Oil). Wouldn't YOU fight back against a foreign nation who "shock and awe" bombed your capital, occupied your country, drove it into total chaos, threw civilians into prisons with torture, and was stealing your major natural resource worth $21 TRILLION? I think you would.

When will America WAKE UP and JAIL Cheney and Bush for their Crimes of LYING us into Iraq and diverting us from catching Osama and his gang???

[feelfree1]

The Bush regime has now claimed another 120 pointless deaths of U.S. soldiers this month, with still one more day to go. The Bush crime syndicate has killed more U.S. soldiers in the month of may, than in any single month since late 2004.

As if that was not enough of an accomplishment on its own, they have managed 2 back-to-back months in a row of more than one hundred dead U.S. soldiers- for the first time in the entire illegal war against Iraq. They even managed to waste the lives of a few Brits, to boot.

Had enough?

www.ipetitions.com/petition/OutNow

[toldyouso21]

Sadr wants us gone, insurgents want us gone and if we think we will just enjoy their oil and pretend we are helping them--it will not come without a heavy price--the question is, how long can they hate, kill and fight? Some of their wars are measured in centuries--and unlike Korea--we may not go days or years without a death--at least not any time soon. I actually do not think peace is at all possible as long as the people who started it all are there. That would be us. we do not belong there, we have as much chance of being on the right side of this as an arsonist who started a forest fire does--in later starting a water brigade. It is phoney, it does not sit well. It is hypocritical and we are only politically emotionally masturbatingggg ourselves. WE have no halo--it is time for us to recognize this, pick up our ball--and go home.

[seven-pesos]

christians are like cockroaches!

whenever you shine the light on them they run into their holes.

that's why i always wear my $300 dollar, lizard skin, 2" heel, chrome tipped

pointed texas cowboy boots...

so i can step on those cockroaches when they run into the corner.

ha,ha,ha.

war, hate, phony republican christian snakes...

nothing good comes out of the bush loving south.

[toldyouso21]

EAch war is unique. What is going on in Iraq, is a power struggle and jockeying and about 20 or so separate agendas--with new alliances and agendas being created everyday. Insurgents want to destabilize and punish collaborators (so do the Iraqi people), Shia want to hold onto power and get rid of rivals and do payback. Criminals want money, Collaborators sell to the highest bidder--which can mean Iran, America, someone in the government, the military--and for the bidder for THAT day--they willl look the other way, donate cars for a kidnapping, NOT find the kidnappers....all very complicated and all totally unpredictable. On another day, they may turn on someone--it all depends what is at stake. Just a paycheck, a relatives life, their life---payback, power.....one thing is certain--collaborator or not--using America or not--no one in their right mind really likes the United States. After all, it was our choices and actions that brought it all to this. Al Maliki must keep us there or lose his life, others want us out so they can take Maliki and other traitors' lives....

[toldyouso21]

Part 2 Now. There are no distinct sides in the Iraqi conflict. There is no peacekeeping there are only agendas--and America has the crazy tasks of guessing who is on their side today, who is double or triple crossing them, if we are the highest bidder for services TODAY or is someone else...if deaths are the work of vendettas, militias, insurgency, criminals or infighting and there is no line in the sand. There is no good side or bad side, if there was, we'd be on that side--there are not even discernible sides. People say they are against the insurgency, only to be found helping them--Iran helps shia, but they also train Sunni, weapons are everywhere.

We are in a place, where we do not know the language or the rules or the cultures or the alliances and we cannot learn them--because they morph and as the invaders--we don't have a true ally--only current collaborators--so no S. Korea for us here--maybe even no Vietnam.

[toldyouso21]

Now 5 years later he raises the plan of US Armed forces remaining in Iraq indefinately - as they do on the border of North and South Korea as peacekeepers.

Our troops are getting their wiped out in Iraq - the latest kidnapping shows that the iraqi insurgents have infiltrated every aspect of Iraq government - nobody is safe - they can't trust the Iraqi police, army or government. We are well and truly f'ed,

And Bush never intended us to leave Iraq -- which is why he had 18 "enduring" bases built. That is how much an sob he is.
nyckate at 09:46 PM : May 30, 2007
****************************************
Part 1

the problem with Bush's wishful thinking is he is comparing the wrong war to Iraq. This is not his grandaddy's war. The situation in N and S Korea had two distinct armies as proxies for America and China--there were no independent uncontrollable factions with their own agenda, there were not masses of assassinations and death squads or guerilla bombings and kidnappings. There were defined and therefore containable groups--and there was a line drawn in the sand and a DMZ created. A cease fire was called and both sides agreed to it essentially.

But Iraq is nothing like that model.

[feelfree1]

Re: "acknowledging for the first time the country may never be safe for some who have helped the U.S. there."

Collaborators of brutal criminal invaders ususaly don't face very bright prosects, when things don't work out. That is the risk that they choose to take.

I am glad that so few of them have been admitted to the U.S.- the Iraqi collaborators, that is. These are not the kind of people that we need in this country. We already have plenty.

I do feel badly about the millions of honorable Iraqis that have been displaced because of the illegal war, though. Many with no place to go.

We owe the people of Iraq a tremendous debt.

[stevex47]

We are in a heap of trouble.

[toldyouso21]

Because consider this--what shall you do if the military is told to turn on American civilians (martial law) shall you support your own demise or the demise of your neighborhood or city?
Posted by toldyouso21


By the same token of morality do you honestly believe that our military would turn against its own citizens?
Posted by radiob at 08:32 PM : May 30, 2007

I believe that given the culture of the military, and the mindset that is drilled into them, that many would indeed open fire on US citizens. Have you forgotten Ruby ridge? As a former soldier, you know that one does not question orders no matter what is plugged for PR purposes. Most can and will do what the CIC commands feeling he must know something they do not. I come from a military family with my dad serving for 21 years as an NCO, my sisters the same and a brother who was an officer in the Navy.

The mindset does not allow room for free thinking or questioning orders or authority--so yes, I do believe that many will, initially, do exactly what is commanded of them and only after a few rebel (and get away with it) will others follow suit. We'd like to think our soldiers are moral or independent but we forget a part of war is that morality must be suspended and they must conform to a higher command. The Mai Lei Massacres and Haditha are not uniques experiences--they are just the ones that got told about and admitted to.