- BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A mortar
attack on a U.S. base in Iraq killed an American soldier Friday, hours
after President Bush made a secret visit to Baghdad to spend Thanksgiving
with U.S. troops fighting to end a guerrilla war.
-
- A military spokeswoman said four mortar bombs landed
inside the headquarters of the 101st Airborne Division in the northern
city of Mosul, one killing the soldier, another wounding an Iraqi working
in the compound and two others falling harmlessly.
-
- "The soldier was just in the wrong place at the
wrong time," said Sergeant Kelly Tyler. "Troops were mobilized
right away and by the time the sun goes down tonight we expect we'll have
some people in custody."
-
- Since Bush declared major combat over on May 1, 185 U.S.
soldiers have been killed in action in Iraq.
-
- During his lightning trip Thursday, Bush thanked American
soldiers for "sacrificing for our freedom and our peace."
-
- He assured the Iraqi Governing Council that Washington
would stay the course in Iraq while urging them to work harder to prepare
for next year's handover of sovereignty.
-
- In an elaborate plan to ensure his security, Bush slipped
away from his Texas ranch Wednesday night, arrived in Iraq on Thursday
and spent two and a half hours with the troops, becoming the first U.S.
president to visit the country.
-
- He arrived back in the U.S. after midnight Friday.
-
- At the heavily fortified Baghdad International Airport,
Bush thanked U.S. troops and vowed they would prevail.
-
- "We did not charge hundreds of miles through the
heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost of casualties, defeat a ruthless dictator
and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and
assassins," he said to a standing ovation.
-
- On the heels of Bush's visit, Senator Hillary Clinton,
wife of former president Bill Clinton, visited Baghdad Friday.
-
- "BAGHDAD COUP"
-
- With the U.S. economy improving, Iraq is emerging as
perhaps the greatest threat to Bush's re-election in 2004 as American occupation
troops suffer casualties almost every day.
-
- Britain's Times newspaper hailed Bush's trip as "one
of the most daring stunts in modern American history."
-
- "Probably not since the American Civil War, when
battles raged only a few miles from Washington, has the incumbent of the
White House deliberately placed himself in so much danger," the newspaper's
diplomatic editor wrote.
-
- "Election raid on Baghdad," declared a front-page
headline in France's Left-wing newspaper Liberation, beside a photograph
of Bush carrying a platter laden with roast turkey.
-
- "This 'Baghdad coup', primarily intended for the
U.S. public, was a brilliantly conceived and executed piece of election
propaganda," the newspaper said.
-
- But opinions on the trip differed in other sections of
the press, with Britain's tabloid Daily Mirror newspaper and The Independent
both running a similar photograph of Bush holding a platter with the headline:
"The Turkey has landed."
-
- POLITICAL WRANGLES
-
- In Baghdad, discussions were under way on amendments
to a new U.S.-backed plan to hand sovereignty back to Iraqis by July, after
the country's most revered Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said
the political roadmap paid too little heed to Islam and did not include
enough Iraqi involvement.
-
- Jalal Talabani, head of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing
Council, said Thursday he understood Sistani's request that a transitional
assembly due to be in place by the end of May be directly elected rather
than picked by regional caucuses.
-
- "I support the idea of elections, which is what...Ayatollah
Sistani said," Talabani told CNN Friday.
-
- Asked about Sistani's concerns, U.S. National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice told NBC's "Today" show she believed
the plan on the table was a good one that would work out.
-
- "We are implementing a plan that we think is a very
good plan, the Governing Council came up with this plan...to get sovereignty
to the Iraqi people," she said, while also emphasizing Sistani's importance
as a religious figure.
-
- Under the U.S. plan, the assembly will choose an interim
government which will take over power from the occupation administration
by the start of July. A constitution will be written and elections held
by the end of 2005.
-
- But the proposed amendments would mean elections would
have to be held by May 2004 -- a headache for the U.S.-led administration
to organize in a country troubled by widespread lawlessness and a guerrilla
insurgency.
-
- - Additional reporting by Seb Walker in Mosul, Steve
Holland in Washington, Rachel Sanderson in Rome, Mark John in Paris and
Gideon Long in London
-
- Copyright © 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited
without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable
for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance
thereon.
-
- http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid
- =A1EQLPYRM23DUCRBAELCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=3907606
|
