More in the continuing Iraqi water pipe dream.
Wolfowitz Gets an Upfront Message From Unhappy Iraqis
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, on a mission to highlight successes in the new Iraq, heard first-hand today of the ethnic and religious tensions that are vastly complicating American efforts for an orderly return of sovereignty to a new government in Baghdad by July 1.
At a session with Kirkuk's town council, Mr. Wolfowitz sat through heartfelt complaints and lengthy lectures that Arabs here are mistreated by Kurds, that Shiite Muslims will settle for nothing less than direct elections and that local militias with no allegiance to the central government are frightening local citizens.
Undeterred, Mr. Wolfowitz, the intellectual architect of the Bush administration's policy on Iraq, said that "all Iraq was the victim" of Saddam Hussein's "torturers, sadists and murders" and that all had an equal stake in cooperating to build a new and democratic Iraq.
He said that the leaders' concerns can be resolved by strengthening new Iraqi security forces under the discipline of a representational central government, and that justice and human rights for all ethnic and religious groups must be guaranteed, regardless of the composition of Iraq's new government.
And Maj. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of the Fourth Infantry Division responsible for northern Iraq, pointed out that these very town council members had been selected by a caucus managed by his troops, and not by direct election.
"As an interim government, it has worked extremely well," General Odierno said.
A member of the town council who identified himself as an Arab and Sunni Muslim, Ghassan Al-Assi, said that Kurdish political groups were "enforcing their ideas" and had "voided" Arab news media and economic opportunity in the region.
Of local Kurdish militias, he said, "They are scaring me."
Ismail Oboutti, Kirkuk's director of employment, who identified himself as an Arab and Shiite Muslim, told Mr. Wolfowitz, "Everyone on the street wants direct elections."
Current American policy maintains that it is premature for direct elections but that those elections would follow a constitutional convention.
Saad Al Deen Ameen said he felt "lonely" as the only ethnic Turkoman on the town council.
After the session, which offered in microcosm many of the problems bedeviling American policy here, Mr. Wolfowitz said that "the militia problem" could be resolved when they were disarmed and demobilized, "but not in a vacuum." That is why, he said, the administration is accelerating the growth of new Iraqi police and civil defense forces.
He called for the peaceful resolution of property claims from the hundreds of thousands of displaced Iraqis returning to their homes, which sometimes are occupied by others.
And on the delicate topic of scheduling elections, he vowed "maximum participation," but said elections themselves would not settle the concerns expressed at the meeting.
The people of Iraq, Mr. Wolfowitz said, must come to believe that they will be treated justly regardless of who wins the elections.
Earlier today, Mr. Wolfowitz went on patrol in Mosul with troops driving the Army's newest fighting vehicle, called the Stryker, a lightly armored, wheeled infantry transport. Critics have said the Stryker's armor, built to withstand a 14.5-millimeter round, may be unable to stand up to even the low-intensity guerrilla threat in Iraq.
Commanders ordered the Stryker's defenses to be upgraded, and a metal cage called "slat armor" has been bolted to all 300 Strykers in Iraq, making the armored car look like a rhino in a cage — only it carries the cage with it.
One Stryker received the ultimate test even as Mr. Wolfowitz was touring Mosul, when it was it was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade on the other side of the city in an ambush that senior officers said had nothing to do with the deputy defense secretary's visit.
Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, the incoming commander of coalition forces in northern Iraq, said that, as designed, the slat armor forced the grenade to detonate 18 inches away from the Stryker's skin, diffusing the blast. None of the troops inside the vehicle were injured, he said, and the Stryker itself sustained only minor damage and continued its patrol.
Although Kiowa helicopters were summoned to track the insurgents, the attackers escaped.
Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, is rotating his troops home from the war, having lost 60 troops; another 500 received Purple Hearts for their wounds.
General Petraeus has built a reputation in recent months for sending his troops across northern Iraq with a rifle in one hand and a wrench in the other, and success stories from among his development projects were on display today for Mr. Wolfowitz.
The general and Mr. Wolfowitz attended the dedication of a housing project planned and managed by Army engineers.
Called "Village of Hope," the new complex provides homes for 18 families representing a cross-section of the region's ethnic diversity of Arabs, Kurds and Turks, among others. The complex was designed and managed by Army engineers, who taught Iraqis to carry out future construction.
nytimes.com
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