Body of missing U.S. soldier found in river: Iraqi police

Reuters

The half-naked body of one of three missing U.S. soldiers was found on Wednesday in the Euphrates River in the town of Mussayab south of Baghdad, police said.

The U.S. military said it was investigating reports that a body had been found in a canal in the area.

Hilla police spokesman Captain Muthanna al-Maamouri said there were bullet wounds to the torso and head of the body, which was wearing U.S. Army-issue pants and boots and had a tattoo on the left arm.

Maamouri said the body had been turned over to U.S. forces.

Thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops having been scouring farmlands through an area south of Baghdad known as the "triangle of death" since an ambush on May 12 in which four U.S soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed.

Three soldiers were reported missing after the attack. The al Qaeda-led Islamic State in Iraq has said it abducted them but has given no proof it has them.

A police officer in Mussayab, 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, who declined to be named, said the body had been found after a tip-off from residents.

"The military is investigating reports of a body of a canal but we have no confirmation yet," a U.S. military official in Baghdad said.

General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said last Friday that he believes at least two of the three missing soldiers are still alive.

Suicide truck bomb collapses Baghdad bridge

10 people reported killed as explosion sends cars crashing into Tigris river

Associated Press

A suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad early Thursday, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars toppling into the Tigris River below, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed.

Hospital officials said another 26 were injured, and police were trying to rescue as many as 20 people whose cars plummeted off the al-Sarafiya bridge.

Waves lapped up against twisted girders sinking into the water, as police patrol boats searched for survivors. Scuba divers donned flippers and waded in from the banks of the Tigris, as U.S. helicopters whirred overhead.

Farhan al-Sudani, a 34-year-old Shiite businessman who lives near the bridge, said the blast woke him at dawn.

“A huge explosion shook our house and I thought it would demolish our house. Me and my wife jumped immediately from our bed, grabbed our three kids and took them outside,” he said.

The al-Sarafiya bridge connected two northern Baghdad neighborhoods — Waziriyah, a mostly Sunni enclave, and Utafiyah, a Shiite area.

Police said the attack was by a suicide truck bomber, but Associated Press Television News footage showed the bridge broken apart in two places — perhaps the result of two blasts.

'One of Baghdad’s monuments'
Cement pilings that support the bridge’s steel structure were left crumbling. At the base of one of them laid a charred vehicle engine, believed to be that of the truck bomb.

“We were astonished more when we saw the extent of damage,” said Ahmed Abdul-Karim, 45, who also lives near the bridge. “I was standing in my garden and I saw the smoke and flying debris.”

Locals said the al-Sarafiya bridge is believed to be at least 75 years old, built by the British in the early part of the 20th century.

“It is one of Baghdad’s monuments. This is really damaging for Iraq. We are losing a lot of our history every day,” Abdul-Karim said.

Deadly blast rocks Iraqi parliament, at least 8 dead

In stunning security breach, bomber detonates explosives inside cafeteria

Associated Press

A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone on Thursday, killing at least eight people, the American military said. At least two lawmakers, and at least 10 other people were wounded.

Thursday's attack came hours after a suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River below, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed in that attack.

Iraqi officials said the bomber struck the cafeteria while several lawmakers were eating lunch.

After the blast, security guards sealed the building and no one — including lawmakers — was allowed to enter or leave.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said no Americans were hurt in the blast.

The bombing came amid the two-month-old security crackdown in Baghdad, which has sought to restore stability in the capital so that the government of Iraq can take key political steps by June 30 or face a withdrawal of American support.

U.S. officials react
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said witness accounts indicated a suicide attack. “We don’t know at this point who it was. We do know in the past that suicide vests have been used predominantly by al-Qaida,” the U.S. military spokesman said in an Associated Press broadcast interview.

At White House, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe condemned the attack by “terrorists and extremists.”

“We’ve known there’s a security problem in Baghdad, which is why the president has structured a new strategy and why Gen. (David) Petraeus and his commanders are carrying it out,” added Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “But this is still early in the process and I don’t think anybody expected there would not be counterefforts by terrorists to undermine the security progress we’re trying to make.”

Sunni, Shiite are fatalities
One of the dead lawmakers was Mohammed Awad, a member of the Sunni National Dialogue Front, said Saleh al-Mutlaq, the leader of the party, which holds 11 seats in Iraq’s legislature. A female Sunni lawmaker from the same list was wounded, he said.

A security official at the building said a second lawmaker, a Shiite member, also was killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

But Mukhlis al-Zamili of the Shiite Fadhila party said the second dead lawmaker was a Kurd, adding that six of those wounded were members of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s bloc.

Al-Zamili also said he believed a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest was behind the attack.

Another member of the National Dialogue Front, Mohammed al-Dayni, also suggested a suicide bomber was behind it.

“I am standing now at the site of the explosion and looking at the severed legs of the person who carried out the operation. If this tells us anything, it tells us that security is lax,” al-Dayni told Iraq’s Sharqiya television.

Earlier in the day, security officials used dogs to check people entering the building in a rare precaution — apparently concerned that an attack might take place.

Green Zone penetrable
The brazen bombing was the clearest evidence yet that militants can penetrate even the most secure locations. Masses of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers are on the streets in the ninth week of a security crackdown in the capital and security measures inside the Green Zone have been significantly hardened.

The U.S. military reported April 1 that two suicide vests were found in the heavily fortified region that also houses the U.S. Embassy and offices of the Iraqi government. A militant rocket attack last month killed two Americans, a soldier and a contractor. A few days earlier, a rocket landed within 100 yards of a building where U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was holding a news conference. No one was hurt.

Khalaf al-Ilyan, one of the three leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, which holds 44 seats, said the attack was “aimed at everyone — all parties — our parliament in general being a symbol and a representative of all segments of Iraqi society.”

Al-Ilyan, who is in Jordan recovering from knee surgery, said the blast also “underlines the failure of the government’s security plan.”

“The plan is 100 percent a failure. It’s a complete flop. The explosion means that instability and lack of security has reached the Green Zone, which the government boasts is heavily fortified,” he said.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said its officials were “investigating the nature and source of the explosion. No embassy employees or U.S. citizens were affected.”

Attacks in the Green Zone are rare.

The worst known attack inside the enclave occurred Oct. 14, 2004, when insurgents detonated explosives at a market and a popular cafe, killing six people. That was the first bombing in the sprawling region.

On Nov. 25, 2004, a mortar attack inside the zone killed four employees of a British security firm and wounded at least 12.

On Jan. 29, 2005, insurgents hit the U.S. Embassy compound with a rocket, killing two Americans — a civilian and a Navy sailor — on the eve of landmark elections. Four other Americans were wounded.

Bridge rescue attempts
In addition to killing 10 people, Thursday’s bombing of the al-Sarafiya bridge wounded 26, hospital officials said, and police were trying to rescue as many as 20 people whose cars plummeted off the span.

The al-Sarafiya bridge connected two northern Baghdad neighborhoods — Waziriyah, a mostly Sunni enclave, and Utafiyah, a Shiite area.

Police blamed the attack on a suicide truck bomber, but AP Television News video showed the bridge broken in two places — perhaps the result of two blasts.

Cement pilings that support the steel structure were left crumbling. At the base of one lay a charred vehicle engine, believed to be that of the truck bomb.

“We were astonished more when we saw the extent of damage,” said Ahmed Abdul-Karim, 45, who also lives near the bridge. “I was standing in my garden and I saw the smoke and flying debris.”

White House opens doors to Iraq refugees

By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer

The Bush administration plans to allow about 7,000 Iraqi refugees to settle in the United States over the next year, a huge expansion at a time of mounting international pressure to help millions who have fled their homes in the nearly four-year-old war.

The United States has allowed only 463 Iraq refugees into the country since the war began in March 2003, even though some 3.8 million have been uprooted. A senior State Department official described the expanded program on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement later Wednesday.

The administration also plans to pledge $18 million for a worldwide resettlement and relief program. The United Nations has asked for $60 million from nations around the world.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Wednesday with U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres to outline the expanded U.S. program. The 7,000 would be resettled from nations outside Iraq where they have fled. The U.S. proposal also includes plans to offer special treatment for Iraqis still in the country whose cooperation with the U.S. government puts them at risk from sectarian reprisal.

Most refugees have fled to Syria and Jordan, both of which have recently tried to restrict the influx. The U.N. estimates that 40,000 to 50,000 people flee Iraq each month and have dwindling options of where to go. Other Iraqis relocate inside then country, with some leaving neighborhoods that were once mixed among Sunnis and Shiites and resettling where their sect is more concentrated.

U.S. diplomats have discussed the refugee situation directly with the Syrian government, the State Department official said. That is notable because of the administration's reluctance to engage Syria in high-level discussions about security in Iraq. The U.S. has also discussed the refugee problem with Jordan, a close ally, the official said.

The U.N. and allies have suggested the previous U.S. policy was stingy considering the U.S. role in starting the war. After The Associated Press reported the plan to allow far greater numbers to come to the United States, Jordan's chief government spokesman did not sound impressed.

Nasser Judeh said 7,000 is still a small number compared to the 700,000 Iraqi refugees Jordan has had to accommodate.

"7,000 Iraqi refugees is just 1 percent of the number we have," Judeh said.

Syria has taken in an estimated 1 million Iraqis. It was the last Arab country to take in large numbers.

The U.N. classifies most Iraqi refugees as having only "temporary protection status," rather than as permanent refugees — presumably because it assumes most will return to Iraq after the fighting ends. Guterres' office has said it hopes to permanently resettle this year up to 20,000 Iraqis whom it considers the most vulnerable, including women, children, survivors of torture, the seriously ill and minorities.

The worsening humanitarian crisis has resulted in calls for action by members of Congress and a plea from the United Nations for more countries to help out.

"It's not fair that the burden is not being shared effectively. A very limited number of countries is paying a very heavy price," Guterres said on a recent tour of the Mideast.

In a budget request filed with Congress last week, President Bush asked for $35 million to help Iraq's refugees next year, and another $15 million for this year.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the administration "has been slow to react to a worsening situation, amid ample warnings." Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., told Rice at a hearing last week that the United States could admit about 7,000 Iraqi refugees this year.

U.S. contractor shot by U.S. forces

Associated Press

The U.S. military confirmed on Saturday that American forces at Camp Anaconda, the huge air base north of Baghdad, shot and killed a civilian contract truck driver.

A spokeswoman for KBR, a contracting subsidiary of Halliburton that was formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root, said the shooting was under investigation.

Melissa Norcross, the KBR spokeswoman, said the company was not releasing the name of the dead driver or a second person in the truck who was wounded "to protect the individuals' privacy."

In Baghdad, Lt. Cmdr. Bill speaks said, "There was an escalation of force incident at Camp Anaconda on Feb. 5 (Monday) that resulted in the death of a civilian contractor. The incident is under investigation by the Army Criminal Investigation Division and KBR."

An escalation of force incident normally means a driver approaching a checkpoint did not respond to military orders to approach slowly and stop.

"Sadly, 98 KBR employees and subcontractors have lost their lives, and more than 430 have been wounded by hostile action while performing services under the company's government contracts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait," Norcross said in an e-mail response to queries about the incident.

Halliburton is spinning off KBR into its own separate, publicly traded entity.

Admitting Strategy Error, Bush Adds Iraq Troops

Culled From MSNBC

Bush says 21,500 new troops will help quell violence, hasten homecoming

Defying public opinion polls and newly empowered Democratic lawmakers, President Bush told Americans Wednesday that he is dispatching 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq. And in a rare admission, he said he made a mistake by not deploying more forces sooner.

“The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me,” Bush said in a televised address from the White House. “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.”

With American patience running thin over his handling of the war, Bush said he would put greater pressure on Iraqis to restore order in Baghdad and used blunt language to warn Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that “America’s commitment is not open-ended.”

“If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people, and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people,” Bush said.

Bush said his new strategy, in which Iraqis will try to take responsibility for security in all 18 provinces by November rather than just three now, “will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings” and other violence.

But he said the increased military presence would help break the cycle of violence gripping Iraq and “hasten the day our troops begin coming home.”

Bush said that 17,500 troops would go to Baghdad and 4,000 to the volatile Anbar province, Senior administration officials said before the president spoke that the first wave of troops is expected to arrive in five days, with others joining about 130,000 U.S. troops already in Iraq in the coming weeks.

Bush’s decision will push the American presence in Iraq toward its highest level and puts him on a collision course with the new Democratic Congress.

Democrats: Strategy bound to fail
Democratic congressional leaders said shortly after Bush spoke that Bush's failure to impose a deadline on the Iraqis to assume responsibility for their own security doomed the initiative to failure.

“Iraqi political leaders will not take the necessary steps to achieve a political resolution to the sectarian problems in their country until they understand that the U.S. commitment is not open-ended," said the statement by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democratic Whip Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. "Escalating our military involvement in Iraq sends precisely the wrong message and we oppose it.”

Anticipating such reaction, Bush warned in his speech that “to step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government, tear that country apart and result in mass killings on an unimaginable scale.”

Senate and House Democrats are arranging votes urging the president not to send more troops. While lacking the force of law, the measures would compel Republicans to go on record as either bucking the president or supporting an escalation.

Usually loath to admit error, Bush acknowledged in his speech that it was a mistake to have allowed American forces to be restricted by the Iraqi government, which tried to prevent U.S. military operations against fighters controlled by the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a powerful political ally of al-Maliki. This time, the president said, al-Maliki had assured him there will be no such interference and that “political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.”

The president also accused Iran and Syria of allowing use of their territory for terrorists and insurgents to move in and out of Iraq and vowed, “We will interrupt the flow of support from Syria and Iran. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

Ahead of a visit to the Middle East by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Bush said Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Persian Gulf states needed to understand that a U.S. defeat in Iraq ”would create a new sanctuary for extremists — and a strategic threat to their survival.”

Last chance to sway public opinion?
After nearly four years of bloody combat, the speech was perhaps Bush’s last credible chance to try to present a winning strategy in Iraq and persuade Americans to change their minds about the unpopular war, which has cost the lives of more than 3,000 members of the U.S. military as well as more than $400 billion.

Bush’s approach amounts to a huge gamble on al-Maliki’s willingness — and ability — to deliver on promises he has consistently failed to keep: to disband Shiite militias, pursue national reconciliation and make good on commitments for Iraqi forces to handle security operations in Baghdad.

“Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents,” the president said. “And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.”

He said American commanders have reviewed the Iraqi plan “to ensure that it addressed these mistakes.”

Bush said that under his plan, U.S. forces will work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations.

‘Clearly defined mission’
Responding to concerns from U.S. commanders, Bush said American troops will have a "clearly defined mission" to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, assist in the protection of the local population and “to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.”

While Bush is putting the onus on the Iraqis to meet their responsibilities and commit more troops, he did not threaten specific consequences if they do not. Iraq has missed previous self-imposed timetables for taking over security responsibilities.

But the president said that the risk of troop reductions at this stage of the conflict would be grave. “Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States," he said. "A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them.”

But Bush warned that his strategy would, in a short term he did not define, bring more violence rather than less.

“Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue, and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties,” he said. “The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will.”

‘Casualties are going to go up’
Bush’s warning was echoed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a leading proponent of a troop increase. “Is it going to be a strain on the military? Absolutely. Casualties are going to go up,” the senator said.

Bush said he considered calls from Democrats and some Republicans to pull back American forces. He concluded it would rip Iraq apart.

“Such a scenario would result in our troops being forced to stay even longer and confront an enemy that is even more lethal,” the president said. “If we increase our support at this crucial moment and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.”

Still, Bush said that “America’s commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act.”

In a signal that al-Maliki intends to make good on his vow to clamp down on Shiite militias, senior Iraqi officials told the Associated Press shortly before Bush spoke that al-Maliki had warned militiamen loyal to al-Sadr to surrender their arms or face an all-out assault by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces.

“Prime Minister al-Maliki has told everyone that there will be no escape from attack,” said a senior Shiite legislator and close al-Maliki adviser. “The government has told the Sadrists: ‘If we want to build a state we have no other choice but to attack armed groups.”’

Al-Maliki had previously resisted issuing an ultimatum to al-Sadr, a close political ally.

The U.S. move to ramp up its presence in Iraq came as there were indications that a key ally in the war was scaling back.

British reportedly to scale back presence
London's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that Prime Minister Tony Blair is preparing to announce that Britain will cut troop levels in Iraq by almost 3,000 at the end of May. The newspaper, citing a timetable for withdrawal that it said it had seen, said Blair would make the announcement within two weeks.

The withdrawal would reduce the 7,200-strong British force based in southern Iraq by about 40 percent.

The cost of the troop increase would be around $5.6 billion, administration sources said before Bush spoke. An additional $1.2 billion would finance rebuilding and jobs programs with the aim of cutting down on the supply of new recruits for anti-government militias.

The $6.8 billion will be added to a broader war-spending package for fiscal year 2007 that was already expected to hit $100 billion. The current fiscal year is on track to become the costliest yet for the Iraq war.

Many of Bush’s own Republicans expressed unease with the idea of a troop increase, noting that an effort last year to try to stabilize Baghdad by adding troops was followed by more violence.

“I don’t know the numbers, but we’ve done 20,000 before,” Sen. Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican, told CNN. “It has made no difference because the Iraqis whom we have trained have simply not shown up to the fight. This is their fight, it’s not our fight.”

It will be different this time, White House counselor Dan Bartlett responded.

“I think the concerns they’re raising is because in the previous attempts the Iraqis hadn’t stepped up with the number of troops that they said they would commit,” he said. “That is going to be a difference this time.”

One official said Bush believes there is a need to “muscle up to step back.” They expect that by summer, perhaps August, they can gauge whether the strategy is working.

GOP leaders vow support
Republican leaders emerged from the meeting promising to back Bush. “The fundamental decision to stay on offense and to finish the job, I think is correct,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

But many of their own were growing restless. “I do not want to embarrass the president, but I do not support a surge” in troops, said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who said he told Bush as much last week.

But Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican who is eyeing a presidential bid, on Wednesday released a statement opposing a troop increase. That puts him at odds with two other prominent Republicans gunning for the White House: Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

After nearly four years of fighting, $400 billion and thousands of American and Iraqi lives lost, approval of Bush’s handling of the war hit a record low of 27 percent in December, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

Among other steps by the United States is expansion of an existing program to decentralize reconstruction efforts. Ten units known as Provincial Reconstruction Teams will be expanded to 19, with the additional units based in Baghdad and in Anbar province, seats of most of the worst violence. The teams, under State Department control, will administer some of the economic aid, including an effort to provide small loans to start or expand businesses.

The president ignored key recommendations of the bipartisan, independent Iraq Study Group, including that he include Syria and Iran in discussions about efforts to staunch Iraqi bloodshed, the official said. Instead, he will call for increased operations against nations meddling in Iraq, aimed at Iran and, to a lesser degree, Syria.

The president’s address is the centerpiece of an aggressive public relations campaign that also includes detailed briefings for lawmakers and reporters and a series of appearances by Bush starting with a trip Thursday to Fort Benning, Ga.

Saddam boosted fitness training for hanging: lawyer

By Suleiman al-Khalidi

Less than 48 hours before he was hanged, Saddam Hussein said he had doubled the workout on his treadmill to be in good shape when he faced the gallows, according to his Iraqi lawyer.

Wadood Fawzi Shams Deen, who met the ousted leader at a U.S. military camp in one of his former palaces on December 28, says Saddam told him and another lawyer that he had done 35 minutes of exercise in the previous two days.

"I am making extra effort to prove to them that an Arab dies with honor and dignity defending honourable principles," Shams Deen quoted Saddam as saying.

Saddam's hanging, secretly recorded in footage distributed on the Internet, has turned him into a martyr in parts of the Arab world, overshadowing memories of his often brutal and bloody rule and of his conviction for crimes against humanity.

Pictures of his composed conduct and erect bearing in the face of taunting at a shambolic execution has helped the supporters who have already begun burnishing his image as a hero -- even as the court still trying Saddam's associates shows pictures of thousands of Iraqi Kurds killed in chemical attacks.

The value of posterity was not lost on Saddam. "The execution will turn Saddam Hussein into a symbol for another hundred years," he said, according to the lawyers, who took extensive notes of their last conversation with him.

Saddam, smoking a Cuban Cohiba cigar and wearing the same black overcoat he wore when he was hanged on December 30, told the lawyers he had turned down an offer of tranquilisers from a U.S. doctor when the appeals court upheld his death sentence.

"I told him that God has given me enough faith to do without them," Shams Deen said Saddam told him and Bander Awad al-Bander, the lawyer son of one of Saddam's co-defendants.

"I will face my creator with a brave heart and clean hands."

Offering cigars to his visitors and a nearby U.S. guard, Saddam said he had been crossing the Tigris River in broad daylight, swimming part of the way and using a small fisherman's boat for the rest, only days before his arrest in a tiny farmhouse cellar near his hometown, Tikrit, in December 2003.

POEMS

Saddam recited poems about chivalry, endurance, heroism and holy war (jihad), saying poetry had helped him deal with his years in U.S. captivity, much of it in solitary confinement, Shams Deen said.

"We have humbled the long nights and it has not broken our will," he quoted Saddam as saying. "Poetry was my window to the world."

Saddam said he had read the Koran, the Muslim holy book, eight times over during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Other titles he requested and got were poetry by the eminent Arab poet Al-Mutanabi and a copy of the U.N. human rights declaration.

Saddam said he had predicted to a senior American interrogator a week after his arrest in December 2003 that Iraq would be a magnet for all the groups that "hated America":

"They will fight America in Iraq, all in their own way and with their own agenda. It is better that you leave sooner rather than later."

Iraq would be a "bigger quagmire than Vietnam for the United States," Shams Deen quoted Saddam as saying, and by early 2007 U.S. troops would have been "driven out of Iraq in humiliation."

"They have reached a point of powerlessness," Saddam said, adding that the insurgency had gained strength throughout his detention.

"Maybe in the first three months they were in need of Saddam. But the resistance now doesn't need Saddam Hussein ... and will, God willing, defeat the occupiers of great Iraq," he said, according to the lawyers.

As he said farewell to his visitors, Saddam said he would leave his people "content that the moment of America's end in Iraq is fast approaching."

50 militants reported killed in Iraq

By LAUREN FRAYER, Associated Press Writer

U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, backed by American warplanes, battled suspected insurgents for hours Tuesday in central Baghdad, and 50 militant fighters were killed, the Defense Ministry said.

Elsewhere, a cargo plane carrying Turkish construction workers crashed during landing at an airport near Baghdad, killing 30 people and injuring two, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. Initial reports indicated the plane crashed due to bad weather and heavy fog, a Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not yet been authorized.

U.S. helicopters circled above the Haifa Street area where the battle took place, and witnesses said they had seen the aircraft firing into the combat zone. Explosions rang out across the area, just north of the heavily fortified Green Zone.

Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Shaker, a ministry spokesman, said 21 militants were captured, including seven foreign Arabs — including three Syrians — and one Sudanese.

Police said the clashes began when gunmen attacked Iraqi army checkpoints, and that Iraqi soldiers called for U.S. military help.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraqi forces had decided to wipe out "terrorist hide-outs" in the area once and for all. "God willing, Haifa Street will never threaten the Iraqi people again," he said.

Al-Dabbagh also said followers of Saddam Hussein were to blame for the violence.

"This would never have happened were it not for some groups who provided safe havens for these terrorists. And as everyone knows, the former Baathists provided safe haven and logistics for them to destabilize Iraq," he said.

Haifa Street has long been Sunni insurgent territory and housed many senior Baath Party members and officials during Saddam's rule.

The Defense Ministry issued a statement saying 11 people were arrested in the Haifa Street battle, including seven Syrians. But the U.S. military said only three people had been arrested.

A U.S. military spokesman said American and Iraqi forces launched raids to capture multiple targets, disrupt insurgent activity and restore Iraqi Security Forces control of North Haifa Street.

"This area has been subject to insurgent activity, which has repeatedly disrupted Iraqi Security Force operations in central Baghdad," Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl said in a statement.

Troops were receiving small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenade and indirect fire attacks during the operation, the statement said.

"Anyone who conducts activities outside the rule of law will be subject to the consequences," Rear Adm. Mark Fox, another U.S. military spokesman, said at a news conference with al-Dabbagh.

The battle came less than 48 hours before President Bush was due to deliver a major policy speech outlining changes in U.S. strategy in Iraq. He was expected to announce an increase of up to 20,000 additional U.S. troops.

Al-Dabbagh said the Iraqi government supported such a troop surge.

"The goal is to protect Baghdad and other areas. If this is going to be achieved by an increase in friendly coalition forces, we have no objection and we support this," al-Dabbagh told reporters.

Bush has also shuffled his teams of military and diplomatic advisers ahead of announcing his new Iraq strategy.

Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander overseeing the military theater that includes Iraq, will be succeeded by Adm. William Fallon, now Abizaid's counterpart in the Pacific. Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus is the president's choice to be the new chief commander in Iraq, replacing Gen. George Casey.

Casey in turn will replace the retiring Gen. Peter Schoomaker as Army chief of staff.

"There may be a lot of changes in leadership and there may be a lot of changes in tactics, but the relationship with our Iraqi counterparts is unchanging," Fox told reporters.

The cargo plane had taken off from the city of Adana in southern Turkey and was carrying construction workers from the Kulak construction company, the governor of Adana said.

On board the Antonov-26 were 29 Turks and one American, as well as a crew of three from Moldova, one from Russia and one from Ukraine, Gov. Cahit Kirac said.

The Anatolia news agency said the plane crashed 200 yards from Baghdad's Alasad airport.

Meanwhile, a new video of Saddam's body surfaced on a Baathist Web site.

The 27-second video shows the late dictator's corpse with a gaping neck wound, his head twisted at a 90-degree angle.

Apparently recorded on a cell phone, the video pans the length of Saddam's body wrapped in a white sheet. Voices in the background say, "Hurry up, hurry up," and "Just one second, just one second ... I'm about finished."

It was the second clandestine video that had been leaked from the hanging. The first, released on the day of the execution, showed Saddam being taunted in his final moments and then dropping through the gallows floor.

Al-Dabbagh said the person responsible for recording the first video, from inside the execution chamber, had been arrested and referred to an Iraqi court.

In other violence Tuesday, a policeman was wounded when a roadside bomb hit his patrol car in downtown Baghdad, police said.

Another roadside bomb missed an Iraqi army patrol in Mosul but wounded an 8-year-old girl nearby, Iraqi Col. Eidan al-Jubouri said. Mosul is 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.