Under fire in Iraq, US sees elections by mid-2004

BAGHDAD - Facing a guerrilla campaign that killed another US soldier in a landmine blast on Thursday, the US governor of Iraq said elections could be held within a year to end the American occupation.

A soldier from the 1st Armoured Division was killed and three were wounded when their armoured personnel carrier hit a mine on the road to the US base at Baghdad International Airport.

In another daylight attack in central Baghdad, a man fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a US tank -- and missed -- before fleeing, locals and US soldiers said. Soldiers found a grenade launcher outside a nearby house and arrested a man inside.

A spokesman said gunmen killed a 4th Infantry Division soldier and wounded two in an attack on an army base northeast of Baghdad on Wednesday night. Four attackers were wounded.

Washington says it wants to put a democratic Iraqi government in place as soon as possible so it can end an occupation that is taking a heavy toll in lives and money.

Guerrilla attacks have killed 52 US soldiers since May 1 and Washington is spending some US$4 billion ($6.95 billion) a month on Iraq.

"It is not unrealistic to think we could possibly have general elections by mid-2004 and that is when our work here will be done," civilian administrator Paul Bremer said at the reopening of the looted and fire-ravaged Foreign Ministry.

The US-led administration appointed a Governing Council of 25 Iraqis earlier this month as an initial step on the road to self-rule. But political progress since then has been slow.

The Council took more than two weeks to pick a leader, eventually deciding to rotate the presidency among nine Council members who will each hold it for a month at a time.

Among the Council's tasks are naming ministers to work alongside US officials, and overseeing the writing of a new constitution. Then, Washington says, elections can be held for a government to take over from the US-led administration.

But as the United States works on the political transition, it has yet to find Saddam Hussein or the banned weapons it said justified the invasion.

Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay were killed in a firefight at their hideout last week, but the US commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, played down comments from other US officials that troops had come within "hours" of finding the ousted dictator in recent raids.

Sanchez admitted that troops had killed innocent people during a raid in Baghdad on Sunday by the Task Force 20 special unit hunting for Saddam, but stopped short of accepting blame.

Angry neighbours said the US troops had failed to block all the side roads leading to a house they were searching in Baghdad's upscale Mansour neighbourhood. When a car strayed into the fire zone, soldiers blasted it with machineguns.

Sanchez said he had heard that up to five "innocent civilians" had been killed and suggested the soldiers may have believed the car was trying to run through a checkpoint. "We regret that and we're working through those tactics," he said.

A defiant taped message which the CIA says was probably recorded by Saddam was released this week, mourning the deaths of Uday and Qusay and pledging a holy war against US forces.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has approved a US$30 million reward to the person who led US forces to Saddam's sons, the State Department said on Thursday.

Spokesman Richard Boucher declined to name the recipient of the reward, US$15 million for each son, but media reports have said he is Nawaf al-Zeidane, the businessman in whose house the pair took refuge in the northern city of Mosul.

US officials say that since their deaths on July 22 many more Iraqis have come forward with tips on Saddam's whereabouts.

The US military says die-hard Saddam supporters form the backbone of the guerrilla campaign that has killed 19 soldiers in the last two weeks alone.

But General Sanchez said foreign fighters may also be behind some attacks, including members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. "They probably are operating in Iraq," he said.

"There are foreign fighters that have come into this country...And some Islamic fundamentalists also."

He said guerrilla attacks were increasingly sophisticated.

"They're learning," Sanchez said of the shadowy groups targeting US forces. "They've got some professionals."

The US military commander of Iraq's biggest province told Reuters American troops were virtually powerless to stop escalating booby-trap and bomb attacks on their convoys.

"Frankly there is little that we can do as far as force protection," said Colonel David Teeples, commander of the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment in Anbar province, where some of Iraq's most restive and anti-American cities are located.

Earlier in the day he offered a US$500 reward for any shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons handed in by Iraqis.

In Washington, former UN weapons inspector David Kay and army Major General Keith Dayton testified about the weapons hunt at closed-door hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Officials said they told lawmakers US-led experts have not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq even after talking with Iraqi scientists. But they have uncovered documents pointing to a programme to develop such weapons.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq