- U.S. President George W. Bush urged Canada and other
Group of Eight countries to bury the hatchet and rally together on the
reconstruction of Iraq after the handover of sovereignty to an interim
government in Baghdad next month.
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- "He talked about putting aside past differences
and all of us working together to help the Iraqi people realize a brighter
future," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday after
the President met with Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham and counterparts
from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia ahead of next month's
G8 Summit in Georgia.
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- But deep divisions remain over how to proceed. Fighting
continues to rage in Iraq while the U.S.-led occupation reels amid outrage
over the abuse of Iraqi detainees, and there is still no UN-backed deal
to create an interim government.
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- "We all have to pull together," Mr. Graham
said. "Everyone in the room recognized that [the abuse scandal] has
complicated that task, including Secretary [of State Colin] Powell and
the President."
-
- Others were more blunt. "We're only just starting
to discuss the conditions and the context in which, on June 30, this new
Iraqi government will receive authority," French Foreign Minister
Michel Barnier said, vowing that no French troops will set foot on Iraqi
soil.
-
- Mr. Graham also said that no Canadian troops are available,
but he hinted that a Canadian police-training operation currently in Jordan
could move to Iraq.
-
- "After the transfer of sovereignty, police and other
forms of institution-building will take place in Iraq itself, in which
case we'll be present in those operations," Mr. Graham said.
-
- The Iraq issue dominated the pre-summit gathering of
G8 foreign ministers, despite efforts to paper over deep and lingering
differences between Mr. Bush's administration and the governments of France,
Germany and Russia.
-
- In Iraq, U.S. forces thrust deep into the holy city of
Najaf in a running battle with insurgents loyal to a radical cleric. And
at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, nearly 300 Iraqi prisoners were
released as part of an ongoing U.S. effort to repair its reputation, sullied
by grotesque pictures and accounts of abuse.
-
- Gunfire and explosions racked Najaf, and shell holes
were seen in the golden dome of the Imam Ali shrine. Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani, the most revered and powerful Shia mullah in Iraq, demanded
that both U.S. troops and fighters loyal to fugitive cleric Muqtada al-Sadr
quit the city.
-
- In an inflammatory sermon, Mr. al-Sadr told his ragtag
warriors that to spill "your blood in this blessed land is the beginning
of your victory." But he also raged that the sanctity of Shia holy
cities "is being defiled and no one is coming to aid us or support
us."
-
- U.S. tanks rumbled along the fringes of Najaf's ancient
cemetery, firing among tombstones at fighters loyal to Mr. al-Sadr. Heavy
fighting was also reported around the main police station, barely a kilometre
from the holy shrine.
-
- In the United States, the parents of Nicholas Berg held
a two-hour memorial service in West Whiteland, Pa., for their son, whose
grisly beheading in Iraq was claimed as revenge for the abuse scandal by
an Islamic militant group linked to al-Qaeda. The synagogue service was
private, but a family friend later said that it was a joyful celebration
of Mr. Berg's personality and character.
-
- The American civilian's case took another twist yesterday
when it emerged that he is tenuously linked to a man charged with conspiring
in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In 2002, Mr. Berg's computer was linked
to Zacarias Moussaoui, currently facing trial as a conspirator in the attacks,
after he allowed an Arab student he met on a bus to use his laptop to send
e-mails, including to Mr. Moussaoui. Mr. Berg, however, was cleared. There
was "no inappropriate involvement in terror," U.S. Attorney-General
John Ashcroft clarified yesterday.
-
- That connection may have contributed to Mr. Berg's 13-day
detention in the Iraqi city of Mosul, where U.S. officials now say he was
arrested by Iraqi police. Mr. Berg's family have released e-mails from
a U.S. diplomat in Baghdad who said Mr. Berg was in U.S. custody, but the
U.S. State Department insisted yesterday that its diplomat was mistaken.
-
- Another account emerged yesterday, from Brigadier-General
Carter Ham, stationed in northern Iraq. "Berg was in Mosul,"
Gen. Ham told Agence France-Presse. "He was travelling alone. The
Iraqi police found him without any documentation. Iraqi police were suspicious
and took him into custody."
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