Iraqi Army

AL MUTLA RIDGE, Kuwait -- A bitter wind whipped the silent graveyard of the Iraqi army that occupied Kuwait City. An occasional car door creaked, but all else was deathly still yesterday on the road to escape that became a highway to hell for the Iraqi soldiers who looted and sacked this tiny country's capital.For almost two miles on the high way north to Iraq, and deep into the desert nearby, hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers, artillery pieces and trucks were burned, bombed out or just abandoned by troops who fled before attacking U.S. jets Tuesday.

This week, the last U.S. combat troops left Iraq. After more than eight years of fighting an ill-conceived, inexcusably prolonged war made more devastating by official ineptitude and hubris, America's soldiers are coming home for Christmas. The nation that welcomes them back honors their sacrifice and the courage with which they served their country. Yet it may be years before we can fully assess the sacrifice our men and women in uniform made during America's longest and most unpopular war since Vietnam.

WASHINGTON - Six months after U.S. officials disbanded the 400,000-soldier Iraqi army, there are growing calls to bring back large parts of it to help combat stubborn guerrilla resistance and relieve stretched American forces. "It's something that's very actively under discussion" and could be decided by the end of the month, said a State Department official who requested anonymity. "People are saying, `Let's entertain the idea. How would you do it?'" A senior Pentagon official said the proposal - under review by L. Paul Bremer III, the American civilian administrator for Iraq, and U.S. military officers - would not necessarily include trying to rebuild Iraqi army units but rather integrating sizable groups of former soldiers into the security forces.

BAGHDAD - Three Iraqi soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing yesterday in Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk, where relations remained frayed among Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen after a suicide bombing and ethnic clashes earlier in the week. The bomb targeted a convoy of Iraqi army vehicles, killing three soldiers and wounding two others, the military said. Iraq's government warned local factions that it would not allow any party to decide unilaterally the region's future, in reaction to a threat by Kurdish provincial council members to declare Kirkuk a part of Iraqi Kurdistan.

BAGHDAD - U.S. authorities in Iraq announced plans yesterday to disband the entire Iraqi military, curtail the weaponry that militias might possess and impose a national system of gun control on the heavily armed civilian population. Coalition officials explained the limits on weapons as an attempt to improve security in a country beleaguered by looting and lawlessness. The dismantling of the Iraqi army is part of an effort to purge remnants of Saddam Hussein's influence from the society, they said.

BAGHDAD -- An assault by thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police officers to regain control of the southern port city of Basra stalled yesterday as Shiite militiamen in the Mahdi Army fought daylong hit-and-run battles and refused to withdraw from the neighborhoods that form their base of power there. American officials have presented the Iraqi army's attempts to secure the port city as an example of its ability to carry out a major operation against the insurgency on its own. A failure there would be a serious embarrassment for the Iraqi government and for the army, as well as for American forces eager to demonstrate that the Iraqi units they have trained can fight effectively on their own. During a briefing in Baghdad yesterday, a British military official said that of the nearly 30,000 Iraqi security forces involved in the assault, almost 16,000 were Basra police forces, which have long been suspected of being infiltrated by the same militias the assault was intended to root out. The operation is a significant political test for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who traveled to Basra to oversee the beginning of the assault.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, arriving in Iraq yesterday, said that his highest priority is to accelerate the recruitment, training and deployment of former Iraqi officers to work with the United States to combat disorder and violence here. "It is their country, and we want them to play a greater role," Rumsfeld said. An administration official who outlined the American strategy separately, said that Rumsfeld wanted, "to get people stood up quickly, attach them to the U.S. Army and then let them go and fight for their country."

KIRKUK, Iraq - The road to Kirkuk was littered with discarded Iraqi army boots. Defenses around the Iraqi-held city crumbled yesterday after assaults by Kurdish forces, a brief uprising by Kirkuk's residents and a wild flight by thousands of Iraqi soldiers, who abandoned their positions and scrambled south toward President Saddam Hussein's bastion of Tikrit. As they fled, many shed much of their military equipment, clothing and, perhaps, any remaining hope of defeating the U.S.-led Kurdish fighters here.

WASHINGTON -- How badly hurt is the Iraqi army after 28 days of unremitting bombardment from the air?The answer lies, literally, in the Arabian sand -- in what military analysts say is an almost continuous honeycomb of trenches, revetments, bunkers and foxholes spread across the desert wastes of Kuwait and southern Iraq.There are deep, winding channels carved into the desert floor; sand-walled craters, sandbagged and netted with camouflage; and underground depots with ceilings of wood-buttressed tin or concrete.

For $35, a military surplus dealer in Mississippi is selling, straight from the battlefield and freshly deloused, Iraqi army shirts -- just like Saddam Hussein's. Toss in another $10 and he will mail out a genuine Republican Guard beret to match.How about a captured Iraqi night vision telescope? A Michigan merchant is offering them at $2,000 each. He did have Iraqi compasses at $100 apiece, but they sold out within days.Interested in a set of combat photographs, including shots of deadIraqi troops?

WASHINGTON - In a new report on the Iraq war, the Pentagon said yesterday that violence is down by as much as 80 percent from January last year, but the improved security gains remain "fragile, reversible and uneven." More than 100,000 armed Iraqi civilians are taking part in U.S.-financed local security organizations, and the Iraqi army and police continue to grow in numbers and capability, with almost 500,000 trained personnel, the report said. But Iran has stepped up "large-scale" shipments of weapons, ammunition, explosives and trained fighters into Iraq, according to the Pentagon.

Baghdad -- In direct confrontation with the American-backed government in Iraq, thousands of supporters of the powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia took to the streets of Baghdad yesterday to protest the Iraqi army's assault on the southern port city of Basra, as intense fighting continued there for a third day. In Basra, there seemed to be no breakthrough in the fighting by either side. As much as half of the city remained under militia control, hospitals in some parts of the city were reported full, and the violence continued to spread.

BAGHDAD -- An assault by thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police officers to regain control of the southern port city of Basra stalled yesterday as Shiite militiamen in the Mahdi Army fought daylong hit-and-run battles and refused to withdraw from the neighborhoods that form their base of power there. American officials have presented the Iraqi army's attempts to secure the port city as an example of its ability to carry out a major operation against the insurgency on its own. A failure there would be a serious embarrassment for the Iraqi government and for the army, as well as for American forces eager to demonstrate that the Iraqi units they have trained can fight effectively on their own. During a briefing in Baghdad yesterday, a British military official said that of the nearly 30,000 Iraqi security forces involved in the assault, almost 16,000 were Basra police forces, which have long been suspected of being infiltrated by the same militias the assault was intended to root out. The operation is a significant political test for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who traveled to Basra to oversee the beginning of the assault.

Baghdad -- Four U.S. soldiers were killed when a bomb hit their vehicle in southern Baghdad late yesterday, bringing the number of U.S. personnel killed in the Iraq war to 4,000. The grim milestone came at a time when attacks against the U.S. military are ebbing and officials have claimed significant progress against Iraq's deadly insurgency and sectarian violence. It was reached about 10 p.m. on a day when more than 60 Iraqis were killed and dozens injured in attacks in Baghdad and north of the capital.

BAGHDAD -- An Iraqi soldier suspected of having ties to Sunni insurgents opened fire on U.S. troops during a joint operation, killing two soldiers and wounding three others, military officials said yesterday. The incident on Dec. 26 is one of the few reported instances of an Iraqi soldier's turning on U.S. forces since the invasion in March 2003. The Iraqi soldier killed Sgt. Benjamin Portell, 27, of Bakersfield, Calif., and Capt. Rowdy Inman, 38, of Houston "for reasons that are yet unknown," the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD -- U.S. and Iraqi army units supported a citizen policing group in a daylong battle that repelled an al-Qaida in Iraq assault on a town south of the capital, the U.S. military said yesterday. Between 30 and 45 attackers on foot and in vehicles mounted with machine guns stormed two checkpoints manned by a citizens' group that had recently formed to protect Adwaniya, about 12 miles south of Baghdad. The untested residents, fighting with their personal weapons and minimal combat gear, held their positions until help arrived first from the Iraqi army and then U.S. ground and aerial forces.

LUXEMBOURG -- The leaders of the 12-nation European Community agreed last night to support a British proposal calling for the United Nations to create a "safe haven" in northern Iraq to protect the Kurdish population from the Iraqi army.[The EC also approved $183 million in humanitarian aid to the Kurds and other refugees fleeing Iraqi repression, the Associated Press reported.]British Prime Minister John Major offered his surprise proposal for the haven at a European Community summit meeting here without consulting President Bush, but he said he thought Washington would approve it.The plan, urging quick action to safeguard the lives of Kurdish refugees, is expected to be presented to the U.N. Security Council soon.

BAGHDAD -- An Iraqi soldier suspected of having ties to Sunni insurgents opened fire on U.S. troops during a joint operation, killing two soldiers and wounding three others, military officials said yesterday. The incident on Dec. 26 is one of the few reported instances of an Iraqi soldier's turning on U.S. forces since the invasion in March 2003. The Iraqi soldier killed Sgt. Benjamin Portell, 27, of Bakersfield, Calif., and Capt. Rowdy Inman, 38, of Houston "for reasons that are yet unknown," the U.S. military said.

WASHINGTON -- American combat deaths in Iraq have dropped sharply this month, reflecting what U.S. field commanders say is a steady increase in the number of Iraqis willing to take over their own security. As of last night, 36 U.S. military fatalities had been reported in October, compared with 65 in September and an average of 83.6 per month since January. That is the lowest monthly total since March 2006, when 31 American troops died, according to icasualties.org, an independent Web site whose monthly counts include troops killed in action as well as nonhostile deaths.

BAGHDAD -- Iraqi and U.S. special forces have arrested at least 59 army officers and enlisted men in connection with killings, bombings and kidnapping in the latest case linking elements of the Iraqi army to sectarian militias and criminal gangs, authorities announced yesterday. Meanwhile, at least 60 people were killed in a spate of car bombings and shootings across Iraq. The raid Tuesday on the defense ministry's military academy in the eastern Baghdad district of Rustamiyah provided the latest evidence of the Iraqi army's continuing struggle to eradicate lawless elements in its midst.