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US troops round up hundreds in Iraq
17/06/2003 13:13 - (SA)
Baghdad - The US military said Tuesday it had detained nearly 400 people in Iraq as part of an operation to root out armed resistance, as the Bush administration faced new questions over its weapons of mass destruction claims.
The arrests were part of Operation Desert Scorpion, which began Sunday, and came amid continuing guerrilla-style attacks on US forces following the war that ousted Saddam Hussein from power.
Sergeant First Class Mayra O'Neil said troops had conducted 36 raids in Tikrit and Kirkuk, north of the capital, and detained 215 people. In the Baghdad area, they conducted 11 raids and detained 156 individuals.
The military has also confiscated banned heavy firearms and lighter weapons, O'Neil said.
Meanwhile, US Central Commmand announced the death of a US soldier in an "apparent non-hostile incident" in the Taji area, just north of Baghdad. The soldier's identity was being withheld until the family could be notified.
The latest death takes to 49 the number of American soldiers killed in attacks or accidents since President George W Bush declared the war in Iraq effectively over on May 1.
There was also an explosion on Monday afternoon as a taxi was passing through a tunnel beneath central Baghdad's Tayaran Square. The driver had to have part of a finger amputated, and three passengers sustained minor injuries.
US troops, who were patrolling nearby, said the blast was deliberate but could not immediately confirm its cause.
In another incident, US military police said on Tuesday two Iraqi men had fired two rocket-propelled grenades at patrolling US troops in the restive town of Fallujah but caused no damage or injuries.
Meanwhile, Bush angrily took aim at mounting criticisms of his case for war, lashing out at those he branded "revisionist historians".
US-led forces have yet to locate conclusive evidence backing Bush's central case for war: that Saddam possessed chemical and biological weapons, pursued nuclear arms, and might one day have armed terrorists with them.
A senior opposition Democratic senator Monday accused CIA director George Tenet of discrepancies between his public statements on Iraq's suspected arsenal of banned weapons and classified information provided by his agency to UN officials.
Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the Central Intelligence Agency failed to provide a complete list of suspected Iraqi weapons sites to UN weapons inspectors, although Tenet made public statements saying it had.
He called on Tenet to provide a complete accounting of the information given to inspectors for public scrutiny.
"This goes to the question as to whether or not the statements that are made by the Central Intelligence Agency are factually accurate, when they make public statements that are important," said Levin, also a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"Why did the CIA say that they had provided detailed information to the UN inspectors on all of the high and medium suspect sites with the UN, when they had not? Did the CIA act in this way in order not to undermine (the Bush) administration policy? Was there another explanation for this?
"Seeking those answers is important, and is one of the many reasons why there needs to be a bipartisan inquiry into the objectivity and credibility of US intelligence before the war and the use of such intelligence," Levin said.
Lashing out at his accusers, Bush said "this nation acted to a threat from the dictator of Iraq. Now there are some who would like to rewrite history; revisionist historians is what I like to call them."
In fact, after portraying Saddam as an imminent threat to the United States, the administration's rationale for war has shifted several times. Monday, Bush omitted any mention of alleged unconventional arms in Iraq.
Two of Bush's war allies, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, also are facing charges they misrepresented the threat posed by Saddam.
Australian intelligence expert Andrew Wilkie was traveling to London to testify before a British parliamentary committee at a hearing on the issue scheduled later on Tuesday.
Wilkie, who resigned March 11 from Australia's secret Office of National Assessments, told the Sydney Morning Herald that Howard, Blair and Bush should be called to account for misleading the public on Iraq's arsenal.
"Australia went to war with the US and UK, without international endorsement, on the basis of what our prime minister described as a massive weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq. That claim was obviously false," he told the paper.
"There is no doubt that Iraq did have weapons at one time and something will eventually be found and dressed up as justification, but it won't be anything of the magnitude we were led to believe existed."
Meanwhile, British troops could be in Iraq for up to four years if pro-Saddam fighters continue to undermine attempts by the coalition to eliminate elements of the former regime, The Times newspaper reported.
Britain has deployed a 17 000-strong ground force in Iraq for between one ant two years, but the duration could double if attacks by Iraqi militia on allied forces become more frequent, defence ministry sources told The Times.
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