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To: GST who wrote (157306)	5/15/2003 10:56:34 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

I'm glad you find it all to be so... uh... simple. It suits you.

To: GST who wrote (157306)	6/9/2003 11:21:05 PM
From: GST	Respond to of 164684

Trick ambush kills US soldier as Iraq regime sets up to export oil Mon Jun 9, 4:50 PM ET BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqis pretending to need urgent medical aid gunned down a US soldier, in a grim reminder of the anarchy plaguing the occupied land even as its new rulers said oil exports could resume next week, thus unleashing an inflow of revenue. The acting head of the oil ministry, Thamir Ghadhban, said he hoped by the end of the month that Iraq (news - web sites) would be exporting some two-thirds of a total oil output that would reach 1.5 million barrels per day. "We are processing contracts now with various interested parties and we hope that during the third week of this month the first shipment will be made available to the international market," he said. Ghadhban's comments, which came just before a meeting of the oil cartel OPEC (news - web sites) convened to mull the return of Iraqi oil to the market, caused the price of oil to slip as traders prepared for Iraq's reserves -- the world's second largest -- to hit markets once more. But the US-appointed administrator warned that Iraq's output would not likely reach its pre-war levels for at least a year because of continued looting of the infrastructure and the wartime collapse of the power grid. Ghadhban said the oil ministry has already recruited 3,000 security guards to protect facilities and expected to take on more. The news that Iraq's oil exports could be back to business soon was matched by reports of renewed violence that continues to plague the country two months after the collapse of the old regime. In an attack typifying the difficulties facing the US military since the fall of Baghdad on April 9, Iraqi gunmen pulled up to a checkpoint in Al-Qaim, by the Syrian border, and faked a medical emergency. "An undetermined number of assailants pulled up to the checkpoint in a vehicle and requested help for a sick' person in the car. Two people armed with pistols then exited the vehicle and shot dead the soldier," US Central Command (Centcom) said. The soldier was the 29th US service personnel to have died in fighting or accidents in Iraq since May 1, when US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) declared the war on Iraq effectively over, according to an AFP toll. In a further incident, US troops detained two Iraqis after coming under fire during a patrol operation in the flashpoint town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, Centcom said. Residents told AFP that during the patrols, US troops shot dead an Iraqi gunshop owner after mistaking him for an armed assailant as he repaired a Kalashnikov outside his store. However this was not mentioned by Centcom. Attacks on US troops have been frequent in the town 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Baghdad since US troops killed at least 16 inhabitants in two separate incidents in late March. US soldiers also came under attack in Fallujah on Friday morning when an rocket propelled grenade was fired at an armored vehicle, said a resident. That attack also triggered searches of the kind which have fuelled resentment and bitterness over the US occupation, witnesses said. Many residents said soldiers were frisking women and flouting Islamic moral codes. The lawlessness in Iraq even extended to a funeral procession as an armed man forced 10 mourners and their just-departed relative out of a mini-bus serving as a hearse and sped off on the road to the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf. As US forces struggled to reimpose security in the country, a group of Iraqi politicians met in the north of the country to discuss the coalition's plans for an interim administration that would ultimately pave the way to free elections. The men, part of a seven-strong leadership council, have been increasingly sidelined by the US administration in Iraq. Paul Bremer, the lead US administrator, has scrapped a promised national conference which the council had hoped to lead in favor of informal US-led consultations to select an Iraqi administration. In Washington, Bush hit back at charges his administration had exaggerated the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in order gain public support for war, saying "history and time will prove" that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had unconventional arms. "Iraq had a weapons program.... I am absolutely convinced, with time, we'll find out that they did have a weapons program," he told reporters. Meanwhile, in a new entrepreneurial coup in the Iraqi capital, an English-language news magazine run by US and British owners, the Baghdad Bulletin, hit the streets. As the country's media seized on its new found freedom, an Iraqi newspaper also began publishing the names of thousands of Iraqis who went missing and were executed by Saddam's deposed regime. The weekly Al-Ahrar carried an initial list of 2,001 Iraqis "reported missing and executed by the former regime," with their addresses and the dates of their execution between 1979 and 2001. Another Iraqi newspaper run by Sunni Muslims charged on Monday that US soldiers had raped two Iraqi teenage girls -- an claim swiftly dismissed by Centcom as "absolutely false".