Day: February 16, 2007

By BRIAN MURPHY

As a military offensive seeks to bring Baghdad from the brink of anarchy, a top Iraqi security officer tried Friday to measure its early stages using the grim logic of a place with daily bloodshed: by counting the bodies arriving at the morgue.

A total of 10 corpses were collected off the streets — apparently all victims of the city’s lawless jumble of gang justice and sectarian payback. The daily body tally recently has often been 40 or more, excluding major bombings, said Brig. Gen. Qassim Moussawi.

By DAVID ESPO

The Democratic-controlled House issued a symbolic rejection of President Bush’s decision to deploy more troops to Iraq on Friday, opening an epic confrontation between Congress and commander in chief over an unpopular war that has taken the lives of more than 3,100 U.S. troops.

The vote on the nonbinding measure was 246-182.

By HOPE YEN

About $10 billion has been squandered by the U.S. government on Iraq reconstruction aid because of contractor overcharges and unsupported expenses, and federal investigators warned Thursday that significantly more taxpayer money is at risk.

The three top auditors overseeing work in Iraq told a House committee their review of $57 billion in Iraq contracts found that Defense and State department officials condoned or allowed repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for shoddy work or work never done.

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS

Democrats face a host of risks as they move toward more substantive steps to tie President Bush’s hands with funding restrictions on the Iraq war.

Leaders are wary of allowing the more intense anti-war activists define the party’s image.

Simmering divisions within the ranks over how soon to move — and how far to go — could quickly diminish a tactical victory this week on a resolution criticizing Bush’s conduct of the war.

By ANNE FLAHERTY

Democrats are challenging President Bush’s power to wage war, contending they’ve found a way to block a troop increase in Iraq and prevent any pre-emptive invasion of Iran. But first Congress will vote on a nonbinding measure stating opposition to Bush’s decision to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.

The House was expected to pass the measure on Friday, with the Senate planning to hold a test vote Saturday.

Unrelenting violence and insecurity in Iraq could cause as many as 1 million Iraqis to flee their homes this year, the world’s migration body said Friday.

“The numbers of people that are being displaced are increasing every day,” said Jemini Pandaya, spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration. “The security situation is not improving. It’s not changing.”

Pandaya said the organization’s estimate was made “on the assumption that security conditions will continue much as they are.”

An Italian judge on Friday indicted 26 Americans and five Italians in the first criminal trial over the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program.

The judge set the trial date for June 8. Prosecutors allege that five Italian intelligence officials worked with the Americans — almost all CIA agents — to abduct terror suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr from a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003.

Nasr was allegedly transferred by vehicle to the Aviano Air Force base near Venice and then by air to the Ramstein Air Base in Germany and on to Egypt, where critics say he was tortured.

By DAN K. THOMASSON

The thorniest question in the current free for all for both the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations unfortunately may be one that is also highly unfair and actually irrelevant — whether the candidate voted for the resolution supporting the invasion of Iraq. Well, who cares?

By DALE McFEATTERS

The United States has taken a small step toward righting a terrible injustice.

This past week, the Bush administration announced that we would accept 7,000 Iraqi refugees this year. That compares with only 600 in nearly four years of war. The administration also announced it would contribute $18 million to international relief and resettlement efforts for displaced Iraqis.