INSURGENTS: Iraqis Shell Living Quarters at U.S. Base, Wounding 35

January 8, 2004
By JOHN F. BURNS


BAGHDAD, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 8 — Insurgents fired six mortar rounds late Wednesday at a United States military camp about 50 miles northwest of Baghdad, wounding 35 soldiers in an area used for living quarters, the military announced at midnight. It said the soldiers had been given first aid and evacuated for medical treatment.

The announcement gave no details on the severity of the injuries, or whether any of the soldiers' lives were endangered.
[The Associated Press, quoting a U.S. military spokesman, reported early Thursday morning that one of the wounded officers had died.]

A Pentagon spokesman quoted by The Associated Press, Lt. Col. James Cassella, said some of the wounded returned to duty shortly after the attack, while others remained in the hospital.

The attack came at 6:45 p.m., on another day of fluctuating events for civilian and military authorities.

In Baghdad, the chief United States administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, formally announced a plan to free about 500 of the 9,000 Iraqis held in American camps in Iraq, beginning with an initial release of about 100. Adnan Pachachi, current chairman of the Iraqi Governing Council, the provisional government-in-waiting, said the releases would begin on Thursday.

But American plans to formally return sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30 were jarred by a statement questioning the American plan by the country's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Mr. Sistani said the plan to install a transitional government by June, to be followed by indirect elections next year to choose delegates to a constitutional convention, would not "ensure in any way the fair representation of the Iraqi people."

The reclusive cleric said he preferred that elections be held before the transfer of sovereignty in June. But he said he had been told by the Americans that this was not feasible — a stand that Mr. Bremer has explained by saying there is not time to prepare accurate and comprehensive voter rolls in Iraq, which has 25 million people and no history of free elections.

There had to be "another solution that is honest to the Iraqi people's demands," the cleric said.

Mr. Sistani's statements have been closely watched by Americans for signs whether Iraq's Shiite majority, roughly 60 percent of the population, will accept the longer political process favored by the Bush administration, which endeavors to win wide assent to a constitution that guarantees minority rights.

The Americans' fear is that Shiite clerics will push for a quick transition to majority rule, heightening the risk of violent clashes, even a civil war, between Shiite militants and the Sunni Muslim minority.

The United States command in Iraq said the mortar attack Wednesday night occurred at Logistical Base Seitz, near Balad. The city is the site of a Iraqi air base that has been converted into the largest American air base in Iraq.

The attack appeared to be similar to one on Saturday at another American camp near Balad, in which an American soldier standing at the door of his living quarters was struck and killed by a mortar fired from outside the base.

Such attacks reflect a changing pattern in the war, senior American officers say. After major offensives since mid-November with much of the powerful weaponry available to the United States command, including sustained artillery barrages, aerial bombing and airborne assaults with large numbers of helicopters, American commanders have reported an increasing tendency to attack "soft" targets.

Mortars have been an increasingly favored weapon, commanders say, because they allow the attackers to remain five to seven miles from the targets. Mortar shells can inflict severe shrapnel injuries, often to the lower part of the body.

Nearly 500 American soldiers have died from war wounds or accidents since United States forces invaded Iraq in March, but several thousand have been wounded, many of them severely, according to Pentagon statistics.

Overall, American commanders have begun to sound far more upbeat about the conflict since the capture of Saddam Hussein near Tikrit on Dec. 13.

The most confident assessment yet was offered at a news conference on Tuesday by Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne Division. General Swannack's operational area includes a swath to the west and south of Baghdad, including some of the hottest trouble spots in the so-called Sunni Triangle, where more than 90 percent of all attacks on American troops have occurred.

The general, a large, imposing figure renowned among his troops for his no-nonsense ways, began his remarks by reminding the reporters that he had appeared in Baghdad six weeks ago, about the time of the insurgents' Ramadan offensive, and had said he believed in his area were "turning the corner."

Now, he said, "I'm here to tell you that we've turned that corner."

"I can also tell you that we are on a glide path towards success, as attacks on our forces have declined by almost 60 percent over the past month," he continued.

He said the success had flowed from an offensive strategy of going after "former regime elements, extremists, foreign fighters and criminals," by generating jobs for military-age males and by destroying more than 22,000 tons of leftover weapons and ammunition from Mr. Hussein's military machine.

A few hours after General Swannack's appearance in Baghdad, a unit of the 82nd Airborne on patrol in Falluja, 35 miles to the west, became embroiled in one of the more criticized incidents in recent weeks.

A division statement said the unit had come under "indirect fire" in the town at about 9 p.m. on Tuesday, and had responded with grenades and small-arms fire.

At daylight, enraged neighbors said the Americans had killed a married couple and orphaned their five children. The American statement said only that "civilians in the area reported two dead personnel were taken to a nearby hospital."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company