Putin changes tune
As the US-led war on Iraq nears endgame, Russia seems to be shifting to a realpolitik approach. The Kremlin is softening its opposition to the US in the face of inevitable US victory, and is moving to mend relations with Washington.
President Vladimir Putin announced Thursday that “Russia has always cooperated, is cooperating and will cooperate with the United States” in solving global problems. “The United States and Russia are the biggest nuclear powers in the world, and the special responsibility for the protection of international peace rests upon us,” he told reporters at his suburban residence at Novo-Ogaryovo near Moscow.
Putin also emphasized the importance of the US economy for Russia, saying trade turnover was expected to reach $10 billion this year.
“For political and economic considerations, Russia is not interested in the defeat of the United States,” Putin said in the provincial city Tambov earlier on Wednesday.
Putin seems to be going against Russian public opinion, which has turned sharply against the US. US policies are highly unpopular in Russia. A poll published Friday by the Public Opinion Foundation found that nearly 60 percent of 1,500 respondents wanted Iraq to win the war, with only 3 percent backing the United States.
None of the Russian newspapers or television channels supports the US-led coalition in Iraq. Many of them take a firm anti-US line.
The popular TV station Channel One uses the term “occupation forces” to describe the US and British forces. The phrase has a particularly negative connotation in Russia, because it brings up memories of the painful German occupation during World War II.
In Moscow, US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice assured Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday that the Bush administration is committed to maintaining partnership with Russia despite the serious disagreements over Iraq.
Diplomatic sources say Rice used the opportunity to assure Putin that, if US forces had indeed mistakenly fired at a Russian diplomatic convoy in Iraq on Sunday, no harm to Russia was intended.
At the same time, a US diplomat denied that Rice’s statement indicated that the United States was accepting responsibility for the attack. Putin and Rice agreed, “to forget about this regrettable incident” and “prevent any impact on the Russian-American partnership.” (IPS, Iraqwar.ru, UPI)

US-backed militia terrorizes town
Residents of Hay Al Ansar, on the outskirts of Najaf in Iraq, seemed to be glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party government, when the city was seized by US forces last week. But they appear to be just as terrified, if not more so, of their new rulers -- a little-known Iraqi militia backed by the US Special Forces and headquartered in a compound nearby.
The Iraqi Coalition of National Unity (ICNU), which appeared in the city last week riding on US Special Forces vehicles, has taken to looting and terrorizing their neighborhood with impunity, according to most residents.
“They steal and steal,” said a man living near the Medresa al Tayif school, calling himself Abu Zeinab. “They threaten us, saying: ‘We are with the Americans, you can do nothing to us’.”
Sa’ida al Hamed, another resident, said she witnessed looting by the ICNU and other armed gangs in the city, which lost its police force when the government fled last week. One man told a US army translator on Monday that he was taken out of his house and beaten by ICNU forces when he refused to give them his car. They took it anyway.
US Special Forces said they were looking into the complaints, which had been passed to them by US military sources. They declined, however, to discuss the formation of the group, how its members were chosen, or who they were.
The head of the ICNU, who says he is a former colonel in the Iraqi artillery forces who has been working with the underground opposition since 1996, announced on Tuesday that he was acting mayor of Najaf, and his group had taken over administration of the city.
Other Iraqi exiles, brought in by the CIA and US Special Forces to help assemble a local government over the next few days, say the militia is out of control.
“They are nobody, and nobody has ever heard of them, all they have is US backing,” said an Arab journalist. (Financial Times UK)

Use of cluster bombs condemned
The wounds are vicious and deep, a rash of scarlet spots on the back and thighs or face, the shards of shrapnel from the cluster bombs buried an inch or more in the flesh. The wards of the Hillah teaching hospital are proof that something illegal -­ something quite outside the Geneva Conventions ­- occurred in the villages around the city once known as Babylon.
The wailing children, the young women with breast and leg wounds, the 10 patients upon whom doctors had to perform brain surgery to remove metal from their heads, talk of the days and nights when the explosives fell “like grapes” from the sky. Cluster bombs, the doctors say -­ and the detritus of the air raids around the hamlets of Nadr, Djifil, Akramin, Mahawil, Mohandesin, and Hail Askeri -- shows that they are right.
The survivors, in many cases, were sitting in their homes when the white canisters opened high above their village, spilling thousands of bomblets into the sky, exploding in the air, soaring through windows and doorways to burst indoors or bouncing off the roofs of the concrete huts to blow up later in the roadways.
American and British forces were accused this week of breaking international rules of war after admitting that they were using cluster bombs against targets in Iraq.
The weapons, which scatter 147 “bomblets” over a wide area, have an estimated 10 percent failure rate, leaving unexploded munitions, which humanitarian groups say are as dangerous as landmines. Yellow in color and the size of soft-drink cans, they are attractive to children in particular.
US forces have been showering batteries of cluster weapons on Iraqi targets with multi-launch rocket systems.
The chief doctor at the general teaching hospital in Hilla, six miles south of Baghdad, said this week that 33 civilians had been killed, and 100 injured, after a cluster bomb attack.
Richard Lloyd, director of the campaigning group Landmine Action said yesterday: “Dropping cluster bombs on Iraq contradicts any government claim to minimize civilian casualties. Cluster weapons are prone to missing their targets and killing civilians.” (Guardian UK, Independent UK)

‘Friendly fire’ hits Kurdish convoy
On Sunday, an American warplane bombed a Kurdish convoy in northern Iraq, which had been joined by members of US Special Forces, killing several people.
The BBC’s world affairs editor John Simpson, who was traveling with the convoy, says he counted at least 10 bodies and several others were wounded.
The incident occurred about 30 miles south east of Mosul, as the convoy was heading towards the town of Diberjan.
The correspondent, who suffered minor injuries in the attack, said a bomb was dropped from a US plane only 10 to 12 feet from where he was standing. He described a “scene from hell,” with all the vehicles in the convoy on fire and bodies — American and Kurdish — lying around and others burning to death right in front of him. Those who survived suffered light shrapnel injuries and perforated eardrums.
Simpson’s translator died from injuries caused by a large piece of shrapnel which hit him in the lower legs. (BBC)

Pentagon defends use of civilian clothes
The Pentagon on Friday defended the use of some civilian clothes by US special operations forces, a tactic used to help them blend in with the local population. Alleging war crimes, Bush administration officials complained bitterly last week that Iraqi paramilitary forces dressed as civilians, faked surrenders and used other battlefield ruses to kill American soldiers. Asked at a Pentagon press conference why it is acceptable for American commando troops to take off their uniforms, but a crime when the Iraqis did it, Defense Department spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said she thought American forces wear something that distinguishes them from civilians, but then evaded further explanation. (AP)

US forces use schools for cover
United States Special Forces have taken up strategic positions in three secondary schools located in a densely populated residential area of a city in northern Iraq.
The schools, which have been closed since the war began, are located near a prominent Christian church and within 200 meters of a United Nations complex.
The decision to locate the Special Forces in a residential area appears to run counter to US policy. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently criticized Iraq for placing key military units and weaponry in and around mosques, hospitals and schools in both Baghdad and Basra.
For security reasons the name of the city will not be published. But this week journalists observed four Humvees equipped with mortars, missiles and .50 caliber machine-guns unloading men and equipment at a girls’ secondary school.
When the journalists approached the soldiers, local security forces intervened, saying that the street was off limits to the media and that photography was banned.
Kurdish residents, who confirmed the exact location of special forces units, are furious at the decision to locate them in their midst but are afraid to speak out. They believe the Special Forces will be targeted by suicide bombers and the Iraqi armed forces. (Sydney Morning Herald)

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