Second tape calls for revolt

The tape was the second in a week purportedly made by the ousted Iraqi leader and US administrator Paul Bremer conceded that the messages, coupled with uncertainty over Saddam’s fate, could embolden people attacking US forces in Iraq.

But he said there was no way Saddam would make a comeback. "I would very much prefer for him to be under our control or be dead. Having that issue unresolved gives these die-hard remnants the opportunity to say to other people ‘Saddam is still alive, he’s going to come back’ and so forth," Bremer told a news conference when asked about the recordings.

"He may be alive but he’s not going to come back," he added. Washington has offered a $25-million reward for information leading to Saddam’s capture or confirmation of his death. "Returning to covert attacks is the appropriate means for resistance," the voice on the tape said. "Your main mission, Iraqis, is to evict the invaders from Iraqi territory."

It also called for trade boycotts and civil disorder. It was not clear when the message was recorded. On Friday, al Jazeera aired an audio tape it said was from Saddam in which he said he was still living in Iraq. It said the tape was recorded on June 14, two months after the Iraqi president was toppled. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said the voice on that tape "was most likely" Saddam’s.

Despite the increasing violence, Bremer pressed ahead with his timetable for restarting Iraq’s political process, reiterating that he would be forming a "governing council" within the next two weeks. A prominent Iraqi politician said all seven formerly exiled Iraqi political parties had agreed to take part in the council, which he said would have executive authority and not simply be an advisory panel as Washington originally intended.

"The council will appoint ministers and enact laws whether those related to currency, education, economy and all other fields," Adnan Pachachi told Reuters at his luxurious villa in the Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad. A source at the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority said Shi’ite Muslims would get more than half the seats at the council with the rest of the seats divided between Sunnis and Kurds to reflect Iraq’s demographic composition. Many Iraqis cite the lack of a national government as a key frustration and a reason for growing anti-US sentiment.

Hostile
Twenty-nine US soldiers have been killed by hostile fire since President George W. Bush declared major combat over in Iraq on May 1. In the last week guerrillas have resorted to heavier weapons such as mortars.

A blistering series of attacks, coming nearly hourly, left seven US soldiers wounded in and around the capital on Tuesday, while the US led provisional authority announced a $2,500 reward for information leading to the arrest of anyone who kills a coalition soldier or Iraqi police officer. The reward, announced by former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik, was an effort to stem a spiraling insurgency that has plagued coalition efforts to bring security and basic services to Iraq.

Arrests
"I urge the Iraqi people to come forward to take these people off the streets of the country," Kerik said. He also announced that US forces and Iraqi police had arrested Sabah Mirza, a former Saddam bodyguard, on June 26.

Mirza was Saddam’s bodyguard in the 1980s before being fired over a dispute. His current connection to the former Iraqi dictator was not clear, but a raid on Mirza’s farm after his arrest netted plastic explosives, mortars, a machine gun and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. US soldiers raided a building in central Baghdad on Tuesday, following up on a claim by residents that say they thought they saw Saddam driving through the area on Monday, and say the ousted leader was met with cheering and gunfire by supporters.

Several pro-Saddam residents chanted pro-Saddam slogans on Tuesday as the US servicemen conducted their sweep, with some singing: "With our souls and our blood we sacrifice ourselves for you Saddam." Tuesday brought fresh attacks in what has become a bloody and uncertain peace for coalition forces. Insurgents dropped a homemade bomb from a bridge onto a passing US military convoy in Baghdad, injuring two soldiers. Another two soldiers were injured when their vehicle struck a land mine in the capital, said Sgt Patrick Compton, a military spokesman.

In Kirkuk, 175 miles north of the capital, assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a military convoy, injuring three servicemen. The patrol returned fire, but there was no word of Iraqi casualties or arrests. In other violence, witnesses said three Iraqis – including a 13-year-old boy – were killed following a grenade attack on a police station in a Baghdad suburb. Witnesses told Associated Press Television News that those killed when soldiers returned fire were not among those who attacked the police station.

Late Monday, insurgents fired mortars at a base near Balad, 55 miles north of the capital, the military said. US forces subsequently caught 12 of the suspected attackers. A British soldier was wounded in a sniper attack in Basra, southern Iraq, while on patrol Sunday night, the Defense Ministry said. The soldier was in stable condition at a British army field hospital where he was being treated for gunshot wounds in a leg, the British government said. Unknown gunmen wounded a British soldier on a joint patrol with Iraqi police officers four days ago by the southern port of Basra, a coalition spokesman said Tuesday.

A bullet struck the soldier in the leg as he and Iraqi police patrolled the northern edge of Basra late Friday, British Lieutenant Commander Clive Woodman said. "This is the first incident where someone was injured on patrols in this area since the end of hostilities (in Iraq) was declared," he added.

Wrong
Amid questions about prewar intelligence, the White House is acknowledging that President Bush was incorrect when he said in his State of the Union address that Iraq recently had sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.

The White House acknowledgment comes as a British parliamentary commission questions the reliability of British intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Democrats in Congress also have questioned how the Bush administration used US intelligence on Iraq’s weapons programs.

Bush said in his address to Congress in January that the British government had learned that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa. The president’s statement in the State of the Union was incorrect because it was based on forged documents from the African nation of Niger, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Monday.

The US-led coalition in Iraq announced Tuesday it was recalling staff from the interior ministry to get security and services up and running, but former intelligence officers were not invited to return. "All Iraqis who worked for the ministry of the interior should report back to work by July 22," senior advisor to the interim interior ministry and former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerick told journalists in Baghdad. "If you do not return to work by July 22, your employment will be terminated," he added.

Kerick said that under Saddam Hussein’s regime, propped up by a labyrinthine state security apparatus, the ministry included six separate offices that covered internal investigations, security and intelligence. "These were used for investigating, intimidating and attacking members of government and Iraqis for political purposes.

Defends
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday defended Ankara’s ties with the United States after Turkish soldiers were arrested in northern Iraq, but cautioned Washington against by-passing Turkey in the Kurdish-held region.

He was speaking a day before a joint investigation committee of senior Turkish and US military officials was scheduled to convene in Ankara to discuss the incident which has thrown a shadow over already strained bilateral ties. "When a problem emerges between partners, one tries to resolve it, to compensate for it … A partnership is not given up as soon as a partner makes a mistake," Erdogan told deputies in parliament.

Warning
Iran on Tuesday renewed a warning for its citizens not to travel to Iraq, with the interior ministry saying the ban also applied to people hoping to make pilgrimages to Shiite Muslim shrines in Iraq. The warning comes amid reports that several Iranian pilgrims have been killed while stepping on land mines during illegal crossings into Iraq, and reports of them suffering from extortion by traffickers.

"Since there is no government in Iraq to guarantee the safety of Iranian citizens, we cannot allow our citizens to go to Iraq for pilgrimage and face mortal danger," deputy interior minister in charge of security, Ali-Asghar Ahmadi, was quoted as saying in Iranian newspapers.