Nation & World News
Prison attack kills 22 captives in Iraq
Tuesday’s attacks, which
wounded 92 others, were
called ‘puzzling’ by U.S.
officials and military
By Carol Rosenberg
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Arab insur
gents fired a fusillade of mortars on
the coalition-controlled Abu Ghraib
Prison on Tuesday, killing 22 Iraqi
captives held in razor-wire-ringed tent
camps and wounding 92 others.
The attack was puzzling to U.S.
military commanders, who consider
the 4,400 so-called "security de
tainees" to be anti-American insur
gents, some of whom are suspected
of launching similar mortar and
missile attacks.
Marines helped evacuate wound
ed prisoners. Twenty-five of the most
seriously injured were taken by heli
copter to two U.S. military field hos
pitals, one of which is inside the
Green Zone, which houses coalition
headquarters.
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kim
mitt, deputy commander of opera
tions, said the attackers may have in
tended to hit their comrades either to
trigger an uprising or to intimidate
them against cooperating with their
interrogators.
"Our guys scratch their heads and
say, 'Why would they be shelling their
own people, killing their own peo
ple?'" Kimmitt said several hours after
the attack.
In all, 18 mortar rounds slammed
into the prison compound, which,
until little over a year ago, served as a
torture and execution center for Sad
dam Hussein's regime. The com
pound has come under frequent mor
tar attack since U S. officials reopened
it last year.
Tuesday's was the heaviest mortar
barrage yet at AbuGhraib, and it came
on the same day that Marines institut
ed several goodwill gestures to try to
restore order in the Sunni Muslim city
ofFallujah.
Also on Tuesday, another American
soldier died in a guerrilla ambush on
a U.S. military column. A bomb ex
ploded under a convoy west of the
northern Iraqi town of Mosul in the
morning, wounding five Task Force
Olympia soldiers, one of whom died
at a combat support hospital.
In Fallujah, U.S. forces waiting for
insurgents to surrender their
weapons eased a nighttime curfew
by two hours and let about 50 fami
lies who'd fled the battles between
Marines and insurgents return to
their homes. Fighting has raged off
and on in the city of 250,000
throughout the month.
Marines laid siege to the dty in their
bid to smoke out an estimated 1,000 to
2,000 resistance fighters, thought to in
clude Saddam loyalists and Arab for
eigners. A group of Sunni Muslim
sheiks have tried to mediate through
talks with civic leaders in Fallujah, Iraqi
Governing Council members and other
coalition contacts.
"We are very serious about a peace
ful resolution. But everybody must
recognize that, in the absence of a true
cease-fire, major hostilities will return
on short notice," said Senior Coali
tion Advisor Dan Senor.
The relief measures are expected to
include safe passage for people from
Fallujah to bury their dead in a huge
cemetery in Abu Ghraib. They are
now believed to be interred in a soc
cer field in the city.
The shaky cease-fire seemed to be
holding. Marines came under fire
from Fallujah only once overnight
Monday, commanders said, and the
coalition is trying to return Iraqi po
lice to their city posts.
An uncertain standoff also seemed
to hold in the southern Shiite Muslim
city of Najaf, where the U.S. military
reported no overnight attacks on
coalition forces by Mahdi Army mili
tiamen loyal to Shiite cleric, Muqtada
al-Sadr. Coalition forces are on the
outskirts of the shrine city, while Mah
di Army forces still dominate there
and in adjacent Kufa.
An Iraqi mediator was bound for
Baghdad on Tuesday night to brief
U.S. authorities on a day-long meet
ing with al-Sadr, and there was a
hopeful sign: On Tuesday night, Al
Sadr aides canceled a daily news
conference which has become a
platform to air anti-American griev
ances, suggesting there may be
progress in the talks between U.S.
authorities and al-Sadr.
While determined to arrest al
Sadr and disband his militia, Ameri
can military commanders are eager
to avoid bloodshed in the holy Shi
ite city. They pulled back some of
their 2,500 3rd Brigade Task Force
troops on Tuesday and camped out
side, awaiting more forces due by
the weekend.
(c) 2004, Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services. Soraya
Sarhaddi Nelson contributed
to this report from Najaf, Iraq.
Despite Iraq news, Bush leads Kerry in polls
Two separate polls show
a lead in numbers for the
President over Sen. John
Kerry and Ralph Nader
By Steven Thomma
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
WASHINGTON — Despite weeks of
bad news about Iraq and questions
about whether he should've done
more to avert the Sept. 11 terrorist at
tacks, President Bush has regained a
lead over Democratic rival John Kerry
and has improved his standing on is
sues from war to education.
Doubts about the war have grown
and still could hurt Bush's chances
for re-election. But two new inde
pendent polls this week found that
the president has gained versus Ker
ry on every major issue, is preferred
over Kerry to handle the war in Iraq
and the war on terrorism, and would
defeat the Massachusetts senator if
the election were today.
By themselves, the polls are only
snapshots of an ever-changing cam
paign. But they do reveal two major
political forces at work this spring:
Bush's ability to retain support at a
time of war losses and his initial, ad
driven success at defining Kerry as an
unworthy alternative.
The president leads Kerry 48 per
cent to 43 percent among registered
voters, with third-party candidate
Ralph Nader at 6 percent, according
to an ABC-Washington Post survey.
Bush leads 50 percent to 44 percent
among likely voters, with Nader at 4
percent, according to a Gallup poll
for CNN and USA Today.
In a memo to reporters Tuesday,
Kerry pollster Mark Mellman and
aide Tom Kiley dismissed the polls.
They noted that an average of four
recent polls showed the president
and Kerry tied.
"Polls fluctuate often in meaning
less ways," they said. "More impor
tant than the day-to-day changes in
the horserace are the underlying dy
namics of the race. ... (The) race re
mains essentially tied. Beneath the
surface, the data continue to contain
ominous signs for President Bush."
The new numbers came amid im
ages of anti-American violence in
Iraq and new questions at home
about whether Bush could have or
should have done more to prevent
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The percentage of Americans call
ing the Iraq war a mistake has
swelled from 16 percent a year ago
to 46 percent, according to die ABC
Washington Post poll. The same
poll found that 45 percent of Amer
icans approve of the way the presi
dent is handling Iraq, while 54 per
cent disapprove.
The number of Americans listing
war and terrorism as top concerns
jumped between March and April,
suggesting a potential problem for
Bush. He has made war the keystone
of his re-election bid. The number of
Americans listing the economy as
their top concern dropped, though
the issue remained number one on
the national agenda.
Bush aides said they were confi
dent that a new book by Washing
ton Post Assistant Managing Editor
Bob Woodward about the presi
dent's stewardship of the war also
would help Bush's standing if read
in full. They said it showed the presi
dent as engaged, thoughtful and de
liberative before the war, and they
noted that the Bush campaign Web
site, www.georgebush.com, puts the
book, "Plan of Attack," at the top of
its suggested reading list.
James Kuhnhenn, traveling
with Kerry in Florida, contributed
to this report, (c) 2004, Knight
Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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