raq clings to a rickety calm between war and peace

The departure this month of the last of the 28,500 extra troops sent in a U.S. military buildup leaves Iraq in a rickety calm, an in-between space that is not quite war and not quite peace where ethnic and sectarian tensions bubble beneath the surface.

Politicians and U.S. officials hail the remarkable turnaround from open civil war that left 3,700 Iraqis dead during the worst month in the fall of 2006, compared with June's toll of 490, according to Pentagon estimates.

Signs abound that normal life is starting to return. Revelers can idle away the hours at several neighborhood joints in Baghdad where the tables are buried in beers and a man can bring a girlfriend dolled up in a nice dress.

Despite the gains, the political horizon is clouded: Shiite Muslim parties are locked in dangerous rivalries across central and southern Iraq. Kurds and Arabs in the north compete for land with no resolution in sight. U.S.-backed Sunni Arab fighters who turned on the group Al Qaeda in Iraq could return to the insurgency if the government does not deliver jobs and a chance to join the political process.

Bombings, assassinations and kidnappings still occur almost daily. And those out enjoying Baghdad's night life feel safe only because they are staying inside their own districts in a city transformed into a patchwork of enclaves after years of sectarian violence.

Whether the quiet endures hinges on many factors, including the results of yet-unscheduled provincial and national elections and whether Iraq's religious and ethnic factions can find a fair power-sharing formula.

The country is bedeviled by the question: What happens as the U.S. military vacates outposts in Baghdad neighborhoods, where it has stood as a buffer and occasional arbiter between Sunnis and Shiites and even arrested police and army commanders suspected of sectarian agendas?

The same question is being posed in the United States. Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, acknowledged Sunday that he had failed to anticipate how much violence would decrease this year in Iraq, and stressed the importance of compromise among Iraqi politicians. His likely Republican rival, John McCain, touted his early support for sending extra troops to Iraq.

Stephen Biddle, a Council on Foreign Relations defense expert who advised Army Gen. David H. Petraeus at the start of the troop buildup early last year, has cautioned that Iraq resembles splintered states such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, where an international force is still in place 13 years after the conflict ended.

In April testimony to the Senate, Biddle warned: "A substantial outside presence will be needed for many years to come to keep such a peace. If U.S. withdrawals leave us unable to provide the needed outside presence, the result would be a rapid return to 2006-scale violence, or worse."

From Mosul in the north to Basra in the south and Baghdad itself, Iraqis are adjusting to a reality far safer than what came before, but nonetheless a perilous one. People tread carefully. They know no one has been declared victor in the battles that will decide Iraq's future.

The militias and the cops

Abdul sits before a checkered red-and-white tablecloth. Even at the height of the civil war, he never shut his Karada restaurant. During religious holidays, he covered wine glasses with napkins, so as not to offend the Shiite militias in the Baghdad neighborhood.

Fighters with the Mahdi Army militia loyal to cleric Muqtada Sadr would come by and threaten Abdul, warning him to close his shop.

Then they offered a second option: Pay us $500 and a case of beer.

But that was nothing compared with the shady policemen who frequented his establishment.

His troubles started in late August when men dressed in camouflage uniforms drove up in the GMC trucks associated with the Interior Ministry national police, a force seen as a proxy for Shiite militias who ran secret prisons and killed with impunity. They told him he needed to raise $50,000 or deliver them a shipment of handguns.

Abdul was convinced one of his customers, an official at the Interior Ministry, had put them up to it. The officer had always refused to pay for food or drinks.

At first, Abdul -- who, like other Iraqis interviewed for this report, was afraid to give his full name -- went into hiding. By fall, Baghdad was less violent and he thought he could find some elements in the police to support him. He stood up to the men. It worked. Afterward, the Interior Ministry official still came to eat in the restaurant, but he paid his bill.

"He is my enemy, but now he fears me," Abdul says. The official even tips. Abdul does not dare to throw him out and remains polite. "These men are gangsters. They are dangerous."

He has no illusions about the future. "There will be more troubles," he says and glances at the mirror with its view of the street for unwelcome visitors.

Sadr City

Kadim Mohammed, an employee at the Education Ministry, watches thousands pray on a Friday outside the nondescript stucco offices of Sadr's movement. He's living on the front line of the battle among Iraq's Shiite political factions. The government has erected concrete barriers partitioning Sadr City and sent army officers in to man checkpoints in this Baghdad district of 3 million people.

Mohammed gazes at the Iraqi army trucks just down the road from the prayer gathering. Black flags flutter for the dead. Cars clog up at the checkpoints surrounding the walls. Millions of dollars have been promised to Sadr City, but nothing has materialized since clashes ended in May between the Mahdi Army and the U.S.-backed government forces.

Mohammed expects the worst with elections to come. He watches the prayer-goers shake their fists and denounce the Americans, and he spots posters of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki in a beret, fashioned after those worn by the late Saddam Hussein.

Sadr has declared a cease-fire for his fighters, but they are volatile.

Death threats have cropped up on walls against those collaborating with the Iraqi government. Some residents have derisively taken to calling the district Rafah -- a city in the Gaza Strip walled off from the world.

Mosul

In the northern city of Mosul, Khalaf Mahmood doesn't know who is his enemy and who his friend. He feels trapped between Sunni Arab militants and Kurdish security forces in the contest to shape the boundaries between Iraqi Kurdistan and the rest of the country.

Mahmood, a Sunni Arab professor of fine arts, lost his 14-year-old nephew in June, seven months after his own brother died in a mortar attack. The boy had been playing on the street one night when a group of men grabbed him and shot him 30 times.

"He was just a child. He was even scared of guns," Mahmood says. Rumors spread that Kurdish fighters were behind the shooting, but Mahmood says he doesn't know who wanted to kill a teenager obsessed with soccer.

Mahmood says he just wants to paint impressionistic landscapes and portraits of women. But such ambitions seem fanciful in Nineveh province. A ballyhooed campaign launched in May to rout Al Qaeda in Iraq has failed to calm the city, and the province's population is polarized along ethnic lines.

"Innocent people are being killed because of false accusations and feuds among young people and some families," Mahmood says.

The painter defends the Kurds as good people, but then grows angry over the Kurdish-dominated army units and the presence of Kurdish peshmerga fighters throughout Mosul and the surrounding suburbs. "The situation will get better if the Kurds withdraw. Then everything will be settled," he says.

Sunni paramilitaries

Graffiti in Adhamiya are reminders that the Sunni district of Baghdad was once the lair of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Now, the members of a U.S.-backed Sunni paramilitary group patrol the riverside neighborhood's winding alleys and 19th century buildings.

Their leader, Abu Abed, sits in his dark office on a nondescript street. More than a dozen young men, sprawled out in his waiting room, lean Kalashnikovs against the wall. Abu Abed reminds all who listen that he calmed the neighborhood but the government has not rewarded him. He says only 160 of his 800 men have been hired into the national police.

Abu Abed says his group wants to participate in local elections. It has refused to be affiliated with any of the established Sunni political parties in Iraq.

He is honest about his movement's flaws, that his men are prone to gunfights. U.S. officers have compared them to the Sopranos, and one Iraqi living in Adhamiya has called them "the best of the worst."

If unemployment continues and his men are not given jobs, he warns, Al Qaeda in Iraq will make a comeback.

Already, militants are trying to kill his men. Three died in a bombing Thursday. "They are penetrating our base and threatening us. The support from the government is cut, we are weaker," he says.

"Terrorists and militias depend on poverty," he says. "If Adhamiya gets no support, they will return."

Basra

Abu Ali's barbershop stays open till late in the evening in the southern port of Basra. Four months ago, cutting hair was a treacherous business as the city lived under the rule of armed gangs affiliated with Shiite religious parties. Now, after a spring Iraqi army offensive prompted a return to law and order, Abu Ali cuts hair freely, not worried that fanatics might be on the prowl for barbers with a fondness for Western coiffure.

"The climate of fear is broken, and people are not afraid of the gunmen any more," he says.

As Abu Ali labors in his cologne-scented shop, army officers and fighters from the Mahdi Army are not so sure Basra's worst times are behind it.

They warn that many of the worst militants, from splinter factions of the Mahdi Army, had escaped to Iran and were likely to come back more dangerous.

But Abu Ali is happy. He adorns his shop with pictures of fashionable models. He wants his country to move on. "God," he says, "has given us the ability to forget."

Parsons, Military Wasted Millions in Iraq, Inspector Bowen Says

Parsons Corp., one of the largest construction contractors in Iraq, and the Pentagon wasted millions of U.S. tax dollars because of poor oversight and building practices, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction said in a new report.

Parsons completed only about one-third of the construction contracts required to build border forts, prisons, correctional facilities and courthouses under a contract worth as much as $900 million, the report said. Parsons received $333 million for individual construction jobs, or task orders, including $142 million for contracts that were eventually canceled.

The Parsons contract ``entailed the most waste of tax dollars'' of the reviews of Iraq reconstruction contracts conducted so far, Inspector General Stuart Bowen said in a statement e-mailed in response to questions about his report. A Parsons spokeswoman said the company did the best it could under difficult conditions.

The audit is the latest to look at Parsons as part of a congressionally mandated review of projects by specific U.S. contractors paid in part from $50 billion of U.S. taxpayer reconstruction funds in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The Parsons contract was closed out in August 2006.

Auditors ``identified significant weaknesses in the U.S. government's oversight of the contract,'' Bowen said in his report, released today. ``These weaknesses created an environment that was conducive to waste and inefficiency, as evidenced by the large number of project terminations and cancellations.''

66 Percent Canceled

The audit says 34 percent of the jobs were completed and 66 percent were canceled. The canceled jobs accounted for 43 percent, or $142 million, of what the government paid out on the contract.

The review identified ``multiple instances in which contracts were later awarded'' to other contractors to fix Parsons' work, Bowen wrote in the report.

Bowen's previous audits accused Parsons of sloppy construction and poor management of its Iraqi subcontractors, including $186 million to build public health clinics, $72.5 million for a police academy in Baghdad and $3 million to renovate the Iraqi Security Forces Civil Defense headquarters.

In the latest review, the files examined by Bowen's auditors indicated cases where the U.S. military didn't cite reasons for the cancellations, or referred to concerns over slow progress or ``general dissatisfaction'' with Parsons' performance.

Completed Work

Bowen did say said that, in general, the projects Parsons completed ``resulted in material improvements in Iraqi security and justice infrastructure, including new or reconstructed border control facilities, courts, fire stations and military academies.''

Erin Kuhlman, a spokeswoman for closely held Pasadena, California-based Parsons, noted that portion of Bowen's report.

``Although we certainly would have wished for a better work environment and a better outcome in some cases, we did our best under extraordinarily difficult circumstances,'' she said. ``Had security conditions been more stable, we would have accomplished even more.''

Still, Bowen wrote, some of the projects canceled ``had significant construction deficiencies, some of which were not corrected by Parsons.''

Corrections Facility

One example is $40 million spent on the partly completed Kahn Bani Sa'ad Corrections facility. The U.S. terminated Parsons' role in June 2006 because it failed to complete its work on schedule, after paying the company $31 million.

A second contractor was hired and paid $9 million to fix ``defective work'' and finish the project, but that job was terminated in June 2007 by the U.S., citing security concerns.

The facility was transferred to the Iraqi government in August 2007, which has no plans to use it, Bowen wrote. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it had many ``construction deficiencies,'' according to the report.

``At this point, the entire amount disbursed for this project may ultimately be wasted because the government of Iraq currently has no plans for completing or using this facility,'' Bowen wrote.

Kuhlman said the Kahn Bani project was a ``uniquely difficult assignment'' because the facility was in a region ``plagued by violent sectarian warfare, particularly in the months that Parsons was on the project.'' she said.

One of Parsons' subcontractors was shot and killed there, she said.

Why is the IOC Punishing Iraq?

A few days after the fall of Saddam Hussein, I got a chilling insight into the brutality of his rule, in the most unexpected place — the compound of the Iraqi sports ministry. In one corner of a sprawling complex of offices and official residences, behind walls emblazoned with the universal symbol of the Olympic Games, was that most medieval of torture devices: an iron maiden.

It was nearly eight feet tall and looked like a cast-iron coffin. At first, I thought it was somebody's grotesque idea of a joke — a gag gift, perhaps, for Uday Hussein, Saddam's psychopath son and head of Iraqi's sports administration. But when I opened it, I realized its purpose was deadly serious.

There were dozens of sharp spikes, all pointing inward. They were designed to perforate skin and flesh of anybody locked inside, but not deep enough to puncture any vital organs. That way, the torturers could inflict maximum pain on their victim without actually killing him. The spikes still bore the distinctive reddish-brown flakes of dried blood.

The iron maiden confirmed some of the ghastly stories I'd heard about Uday's treatment of Iraqi sportsmen, especially the national soccer team. When they lost a game, they routinely received beatings and an imaginative range of punishments — like being made to kick concrete balls, or forced to run shoeless over shards of glass. Later, I would meet a coach who had spent two terrifying hours in the iron maiden — his torso was riddled with scars from the spikes.

Needless to say, torture didn't make the Iraqi soccer team play better. But once freed from Uday's depravity, the team flourished. At the Athens Olympics in 2004, they went all the way to the semi-finals, losing the bronze medal game by a single goal to the mighty Italians. They had been the Cinderella team of the Games, and like their proud countrymen, I celebrated the team's success. Three years later, as their country was being torn apart by a bloody sectarian war between Shi'ites and Sunnis, the team (comprising of players from both sects) won the Asia Cup, leading to incredible scenes of jubilation on Baghdad's streets. The ghost of Uday Hussein and memories of his torture devices seemed to have been well and truly exorcized.

But more recently, as the team's form has dipped, some painful memories have returned. Iraqi sports officials no longer torture players for poor results, but they seem to have inherited Uday's penchant for dishing out summary, collective punishment. Last month, when the team failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, the Iraqi Football Federation disbanded the entire squad — players, coaches, and support staff.

Now it turns out that even if the team had qualified, they may not have gone to Beijing anyway — because the International Olympic Committee has banned Iraq from the Games. The reason: in May, the Iraqi government disbanded the country's Olympics Committee and replaced it with new appointees. The government said the old committee has failed to hold proper organizational elections, but many in Baghdad suspect a sectarian motive. They point out that the sports minister, is a a Shi'ite, whereas the country's sports administration had traditionally been in Sunni hands.

The IOC, deeming this as political interference in sporting matters, gave the Iraqi government a deadline in which to reinstate the old committee. Baghdad refused to back down, and now the seven Iraqis who had qualified for the Games — two rowers, an archer, a discus thrower, a sprinter, a weightlifter and a judoka — have been told to unpack their bags.

They're not the only ones suffering the consequences of political wrangling, though. The ban amounts to collective punishment for all Iraqis. The IOC's protestations that it had no choice but to impose its rules are plainly disingenuous. For one thing, Iraq is hardly the only country where politicians meddle with sport. The Games are, after all, being held in China! For another, if the IOC was perfectly happy to let Iraq participate in previous Games when Uday was running Iraq sports. Perhaps locking a football player in an iron maiden doesn't qualify under the IOC's definition of "political interference," but that's a distinction that will be lost on most Iraqis.

In Iraq, car bomb wounds local Sunni politician

Police say a car bomb attack wounded a member of a Sunni political party and his son and killed two of his bodyguards.

Police say unknown gunmen also opened fire on the house of Zaki Obaid Fayadh, head of the local branch of the Iraqi Islamic party, in Fallujah about 40 miles west of Baghdad. Sunday's explosion occurred in Fayadh's garage.

Police say it appears that the bomb was planted under a car.

The party is led by Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi

Obama's Iraq problem lies in believing his own myths

BARACK Obama concedes that America's troops have contributed to improvements on the ground in Iraq, but he still stands by his vote against the surge.

Why not just admit that he was wrong?

Come on, senator, this is a lot easier than changing churches. Say: "As a proud American, I'm delighted that the surge has worked so we can move forward with my timetable for withdrawal. Look, if I'd known how successful it was going to be, I would have voted for it. At the time it didn't seem like a good bet, but prognosticators go broke in wartime."

See, that wasn't so bad.

Instead, Obama says that even knowing what he now knows, he still would have voted against the surge. Really? Even knowing that without the surge, he couldn't have safely visited Iraq?

Obama insists that, hypothetically, his own plan might have worked better than the surge: "We don't know what would have happened if I, if the plan that I put forward in January 2007, to put more pressure on the Iraqis to arrive at a political reconciliation, to begin a phased withdrawal, what would have happened had we pursued that strategy."

But we do know. Or at least we can wager with some confidence that had we withdrawn within 14 months, as Obama was proposing at the time — before Sunni Arabs, once the insurgency's backbone, felt sufficiently secure to turn against the jihadists — Iraq today would be in bloody chaos, al-Qaida victorious and the U.S. further diminished in the Arab world.

Obama voted against the surge, he said then, because he was convinced that inserting 20,000 more troops into Iraq was likely to make things worse, not better. Now trying to justify that miscall, he says he couldn't have anticipated the Sunni Awakening.

Wait. Obama could anticipate that the war in Iraq would go badly. He could anticipate that the surge wouldn't work. But he couldn't anticipate that the Sunnis would turn on al-Qaida?

Actually, Obama had more information at his fingertips in assessing the probability of the surge's success than he did for any of his other predictions, including assurance from commanders on the ground that local tribal leaders were showing a willingness to take on al-Qaida.

Most Americans, including many in Congress who approved the Iraq invasion, say that if they'd known then what they know now, they wouldn't have supported the war. Why is it so hard for Obama, knowing what he knows now, to say that he should have supported the surge?

To review Obama's statements on the surge since it began is to understand why: pride.

Over and over again — even after Gen. David Petraeus reported in late 2007 that the surge was working — Obama said: It's not working. It won't work. It's a mistake. He essentially was betting his presidential hopes on the surge's failure.

But the surge did work — and the mistake is Obama's.

Most Americans would have little trouble forgiving Obama for not believing the surge would be effective. It was a gamble, as are all strategies in war. Even with reports on the ground that locals seemed increasingly willing to rise up, there was reason enough by 2007 to doubt the wisdom of America's commander in chief.

It is less easy to forgive the kind of wrongheaded stubbornness now on display. As recently as July 14, Obama wrote in a New York Times op-ed that "the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true." He mentioned the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, money spent in Iraq and said that the surge had failed to produce "political accommodation."

Fine. But the larger, more important point is that the surge was necessary and successful. Those facts outweigh all other considerations past and present. Moreover, a recent U.S. Embassy report stated that 15 of 18 benchmarks set by Congress for Iraq are being met in a "satisfactory" fashion.

Obama has fallen to pride in part because he has bought his own myth. By staking his future on a past of supernatural vision, he has made it difficult to admit human fault. The magic isn't working anymore. And Obama, the visionary one, can't even see what everyone else sees: He was wrong.

Charges dropped against Marine sniper in Iraq shootings

The Marine Corps on Thursday dropped all charges against a Camp Pendleton sniper accused of wrongly shooting two men he thought were planting roadside bombs in Iraq.

Sgt. John Winnick II, 24, of San Diego, had been charged with involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and dereliction of duty in connection with the June 17, 2007, incident near Lake Tharthar in western Iraq.

Prosecutors contended Winnick had violated the rules of engagement by shooting too hastily at a truck driver carrying a satchel and his three passengers. The four men got out at an intersection where roadside bombs previously had been planted.

Winnick and several other snipers had been staking out the crossroads.

All four men were wounded, two fatally, but no bomb-making materials were found.

Winnick said he believed he was protecting his fellow Marines from insurgent bombers.

Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, followed the advice of the pretrial hearing officer in dismissing the charges.

Olympic officials bar Iraq from Beijing Games

Four years after its athletes received a huge ovation at the first Olympics after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq was told Thursday that its seven-member team would not be allowed to compete in Beijing because of a dispute with the International Olympic Committee.

Olympic officials informed Iraq that it was barring the team because the government had dismissed the country's Olympic committee and appointed a new body chaired by its youth and sports minister.

The IOC action two weeks before the Games' opening ceremony came after it had threatened in June to bar Iraq from participating.

Iraqi officials have charged that the IOC was misrepresenting their efforts to rebuild the country's executive Olympic body after a mass kidnapping two years ago. They said the new panel was appointed because after the kidnapping, the executive committee had been beset by corruption and a shortage of members.

"I am deeply saddened for the Iraqi athletes who did nothing wrong," said Anita DeFrantz, the senior American member of the IOC. "It is hard to understand how a government in today's world could purposely deny them their opportunity by fiat."

IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies laid out hope that last-minute talks could save the day. "If there can be some movement and if a resolution can be found, that's still an open door," she told CNN. She estimated that Iraq had about a week to salvage the situation.

None of the seven Iraqi athletes, who were to compete in track and field, rowing, archery and weightlifting, were considered medal contenders. The track and field athletes, both sprinters, stand the best chance of still being able to compete because the deadline for entries in that sport comes after the Aug. 8 opening ceremony, according to the IOC.

While the IOC accused Iraq's government of meddling in sports, Baghdad accused the IOC of failing to meet with Iraqi officials and of being under the thrall of favorites dating back to 2004, when the first post-Hussein Olympic committee was set up under the sponsorship of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

"It was an unfair decision against the Iraqi Olympic movement and Iraqi sports," said Basil Adel Mehdi, an advisor to the minister of youth and sports. "It is a punishment against Iraqi athletes."

The dispute is in part a legacy of Iraq's civil conflict. More than 30 employees of the Iraqi Olympic organization were kidnapped by about 60 men dressed in Iraqi government security uniforms in July 2006. The chairman and three others on the 11-member national committee were never found. At the time, some sports observers suggested the abduction might have been linked to internal power struggles.

Star athletes in soccer, wrestling and martial arts also have been killed since 2006.

After the abductions, the committee dwindled from 11 members to three. In May 2007, the government made its first attempt to fill the empty slots, adding three more members, Mehdi said. A year later, the government disbanded that committee and appointed a new, temporary body.

Mehdi, who is the brother of Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi, said that the old executive committee had been beset by corruption and that former members of Hussein's Baath Party had continued to exert influence there. He accused former Baathists of playing a role in sabotaging Iraq's relations with the IOC.

Mehdi accused the IOC of ignoring Iraqi government explanations and being evasive about planning a meeting to settle the dispute. In turn, the IOC says the Iraqi government did not respond to invitations to meet with Olympic officials in Lausanne, Switzerland, after they were warned in June.

The predominance of Shiites in the Ministry of Youth and Sports had fanned concerns that sectarian issues were at play in the case. Mehdi denied that. He said that the original executive body was appointed in 2004 under the U.S. occupation, and that it had been meant to serve for just one year before new elections. But instead of holding elections, committee members decided to extend their terms to five years.

Iraq participated in its first Olympics in 1948. It has won one medal, in 1960, a weightlifting bronze by Abdul Wahid Aziz.

But perhaps Iraq's greatest Olympic moment was in 2004 in Athens, where the men's soccer team reached the semifinals before finishing fourth. The soccer team failed to qualify for this Olympics.

There had been some question about whether Iraq would be allowed to attend the Athens Games, as well. The Iraqi Olympic committee was suspended by the IOC on May 17, 2003, but it restructured at that time and was reinstated Feb. 27, 2004. The delegation of Iraqi athletes was well received in Athens, getting one of the largest ovations during the opening ceremony.

McCain's blind spot on Iraq, Vietnam

IS IT ANY wonder that John McCain was feeling a tad neglected? There was Barack Obama on a nine-day trip through eight countries with three network anchors, and all John got was a lousy T-shirt. Or to be more exact, all he got was a ride in George H.W. Bush's golf cart and a rejection slip from a New York Times op-ed editor.

Even McCain's inner circle began to get snarky. They keep referring to Obama as "The One" and complain that the maverick boytoy McCain has been replaced in the media's heart by a new trophy wife named Barack. The straight talker's website even posted a video of "The Media is in Love," a montage of fawning sound bites against a soundtrack of Frankie Valli singing "Can't Take My Eyes Off You."

Never mind that Frankie's "Eyes" was a No. 2 hit in 1967, a year when Obama was 6. For some reason, McCain's cultural references have a sell-by date of 1970. But it wasn't just Frankie Valli that makes me feel that the Republican is locked into a 40-year-old time frame. It's the debate about Iraq itself.

Gary Hart once said, "In a way, John is refighting the Vietnam War." For a long time, the former prisoner of war has believed that Vietnam should have, could have had a different ending. Americans lost the war because they lost their will. He's thought more about the sorry last chapter of that war than its foolish beginning.

So, too, his attention on Iraq has been less on the war's origin than on some undefined victorious conclusion. McCain jumped the shark when he accused Obama of wanting to win an election even if it meant losing a war. But even before that intemperate charge, he said something equally damning: "The fact is, if we had done what Senator Obama wanted to do, we would have lost."

McCain starts the historical clock running after the invasion and even after the surge. For all his complaints about the media, he's been able to focus the Iraq debate on the surge's success. He has said repeatedly, "I'm proud that I was right. That's what judgment is about. That's why I'm qualified to lead."

But what if "we had done what Obama wanted to do" in 2002, when he was a lowly state senator and an opponent of invasion? We wouldn't have roared into this disaster.

I am well aware that we cannot rewind the past. We focus now on the least catastrophic exit plan. When the Iraqi prime minister and Obama agree on a timetable, I synchronize my watch. But it's still fair to measure a candidate by his view on our entrance to this war.

The current president has never admitted that we invaded Iraq on false premises or phony preemptives or fictitious weapons of mass destruction. Bush will breeze home to Texas without a modicum of guilt. Do we want another president like that?

Let's go back to a McCain op-ed that did run in The New York Times before the invasion: "Only an obdurate refusal to face unpleasant facts . . . could allow one to believe that we have rushed to war." Let's go back to an interview with Tim Russert when McCain was asked if he would still have gone to war even knowing there were no WMDs. "Yes," he answered without missing a beat. The only regret or anger expressed by McCain is that we didn't have enough troops earlier.

Finally, in the recent, rejected op-ed, McCain said that by advocating timetables for withdrawal, Obama was "emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the 'Mission Accomplished' banner prematurely." Dear John: Wasn't the "worst mistake of the Bush administration" launching the invasion at all?

This is not a summer of love. Frankie Valli is no longer a teen idol. Iraq is not Vietnam. But Americans are in a $10 billion-a-month war with more than 4,000 dead and 30,000 wounded. We've watched the current president deny and deny that he was wrong in invading Iraq. If there's a bottom-line, rock-solid qualification for being the next president, it's a candidate who acknowledges just how badly we were misled. So far, Obama's The (Only) One.

Iraq banned from Beijing Game: NOC chief

Iraq have been banned from next month's Beijing Games because of a government decision to disband the country's National Olympic Committee (NOC), a senior official said on Thursday.

"This morning we were informed of the final decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to suspend the membership of the Iraqi Olympic Committee," NOC general secretary Hussein al-Amidi told Reuters.

"It is a blow to Iraq and its international reputation, its athletes and its youth."

The government of Iraq disbanded the NOC in May because of a dispute over how it had been assembled. The IOC gave Iraq a deadline to reinstate the committee but the government has refused to back down.

Iraq had planned to send a small team despite violence that has killed more than 100 athletes in the country since the 2003 United States-led invasion.

At least seven Iraqi athletes, two rowers, a weightlifter, a sprinter, a discus thrower, a judoka and an archer, had won places in Beijing.

"There's nothing I can do. The government of Iraq wanted this. I can't believe I'm not going to take part in the Beijing Olympics. The news is hard to take," archer Ali Adnan told Reuters from Egypt where he had been training.

IOC DISAPPOINTED

The IOC, which has long supported Iraqi athletes training abroad to prepare for the Games, said it was very disappointed.

"We sent a letter to the Iraqi government today saying that as the situation stands today it is unlikely to have Iraqi athletes at the Beijing Games," said IOC spokesperson Emmanuelle Moreau.

The chances of Iraq reinstating the NOC seem slim. The government has said the committee was illegitimate because it lacked a quorum and had failed to hold new elections.

"There is no review of the government's decision because it was taken in accordance with the law," Youth and Sports Minister Jasem Mohammed Jaafar told Reuters.

However, the IOC said the Olympic Charter forbids political interference in the Olympic Movement.

Rule 28(9) of the Charter provides for the suspension of an NOC in the event "any governmental body...causes the activity of the NOC...to be hampered."

The Iraqi government was invited to go to (the IOC's headquarters in) Lausanne to discuss possible remedies but did not positively respond to the invitation, the IOC said.

DETERMINED ATHLETES

Iraqi athletes had been determined to make their presence felt in Beijing despite the difficulties they faced.

Athletes's reputations and international links make them and their families targets for violence in Iraq and the country's sports infrastructure has decayed over decades.

Former basketball player and NOC boss Ahmed al-Hadjiya was kidnapped along with other sports officials by gunmen who stormed a conference in broad daylight in 2006. They are still missing.

Sport gave Iraqis arguably their greatest moment of unity since the fall of Saddam Hussein when the national soccer team, including members of all its main warring groups, defeated a heavily favored Saudi Arabia to win the Asian Cup last year.

Over the last five years the IOC and the wider Olympic family have provided funding and training opportunities to support Iraq's NOC and more than 50 Iraqi athletes and coaches.

"The Iraqi government's actions have destroyed this progress," an IOC official said.

McCain denies he misstated timing of Iraq surge

Republican John McCain is pushing back against Democratic criticism that he misstated the timing of the buildup of troops ordered by President Bush in early 2007. He says parts of the new strategy began months earlier.

The Arizona senator has told reporters during a stop at a super market in Bethlehem, Pa., that what the Bush administration calls "the surge" was actually "made up of a number of components." McCain says some components of the surge began before Bush ordered more U.S. troops into Iraq.

McCain says U.S. Col. Sean MacFarland started carrying out elements of a new counterinsurgency strategy as early as December 2006.

In Iraq, Kurds walk out of parliament in protest

Kurdish lawmakers walked out of parliament Tuesday in protest over a vote on conditions for Iraq's provincial elections that called for ethnic groups to share power in Kirkuk, an oil-rich city that Kurds consider part of their territory.

The walkout, which included shouting and accusations of a conspiracy against Kurds, appeared to reduce the chances that the elections would be held this year. There is no law setting out election procedures.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have hoped that provincial balloting would ease tensions among the country's main ethnic and religious factions.

Although the measure Tuesday was passed by parliament through a secret ballot, it requires approval by the three-member presidential council, led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who is all but certain to reject the legislation.

The contentious issue was among several points that have delayed a vote on legislation to set up the first local elections since January 2005, when most Sunni Arabs and many followers of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr boycotted the vote. U.S. officials believe participation of such groups could go a long way toward righting the balance of power in provincial politics, in which a small number of parties, mainly Kurdish and Shiite Muslim, have dominated.

The elections, sought by U.S. officials for more than a year, have been stalled amid political competition, with parties in the Iraqi government fearing that local elections could cost them influence. Disagreements have centered on the question of whether voters should be allowed to choose individual candidates or pick from closed party lists. Lawmakers have also argued about whether parties could use religious imagery in the campaign and whether parties with links to militias could participate.

The government had aimed for elections in October. But the country's election commission announced over the weekend that the date was unrealistic and that the legislation must be passed by the end of the month if Iraq wanted to hold the elections by December.

The status of Kirkuk has proved to be a major stumbling block. Last week, the parliament's Kurdish bloc staged its first walkout over a draft of the electoral legislation because of its provision to either delay provincial elections in Kirkuk until the city's future is decided or to redistribute power equally among Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens.

The Kurds in parliament had argued that Tamim province, of which Kirkuk is the capital, should be treated no differently than any other region in Iraq. The Kurds swept to victory in 2005 provincial elections in Tamim, largely a result of the decision by Sunni Arabs to skip the vote. The Sunnis, who dominated Iraqi politics under Saddam Hussein's rule, now regret the decision.

Arabs fear that they would be subjected to discrimination under a Kurdish government in Kirkuk.

On Tuesday, Kurdish legislators said they intended to compromise on the electoral legislation but parliamentary Speaker Mahmoud Mashadani, a member of the parliament's main Sunni coalition, backed a measure to hold a secret ballot regarding the provision on Kirkuk.

The leader of the Kurdish bloc, Fuad Masoom, led his coalition's lawmakers out of parliament in anger. Kurdish lawmaker Adil Barwari said Masoom called Mashadani's move a conspiracy, and others shouted that the vote violated the constitution.

Of the remaining 142 lawmakers, 127 approved the measure. The provision called for a committee to be set up to review the problems in Kirkuk and take interim steps until local elections are scheduled, including apportioning power in the provincial government equally among Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens.

Arab lawmakers defended the push for a secret ballot, saying that parliament members would have been pressured by the Kurds to vote against the provision if it had been a public vote.

"It was feared that there might be pressure exerted on the MPs, so this was chosen in order to give them freedom to express their opinion," Sunni lawmaker Farhan Awad said.

Before Mashadani backed the call for a secret ballot, Barwari said, the Kurds had worked with their main Shiite partners on a compromise measure to set up their own parliamentary committee to investigate the situation in Kirkuk and delay elections.

The parliament's deputy speaker, Khalid Attiya, a prominent member of the ruling Shiite coalition, joined the Kurds in criticizing the vote.

"By doing this, we will likely lose the chance to hold elections in 2008," Attiya told reporters.

Kurdish politicians said the row was almost certain to slow progress on other contentious issues, such as a national oil law, which has stalled in parliament for more than a year.

Barwari said the quarrel could also spill into violence in northern Iraq if the measure approved Tuesday was ratified.

"The measure voted on today is impossible to be implemented peacefully in Kirkuk," he said.

When, not if, to leave Iraq

Call it a timetable, phased withdrawal or (our favorite) "joint aspirational time horizons." The Iraq debate has shifted to when - not if - on the subject of a troop pullout.

The big winner in this shift must be Sen. Barack Obama. His quickie Mideast tour put the presumptive Democratic nominee in sync with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who said he now favors a U.S. troop departure on roughly the same 16-month time frame that Obama suggests.

Even the White House got in the act by deploying the Bush-speak term "time horizons." The presumptive GOP nominee John McCain sidestepped the remarkable shift by denouncing, yet again, Obama's qualifications as a military leader.

The political parrying can't obscure what's happening. The Iraqi leadership is prepared for a U.S. exit. Daily life has stabilized, a fragile truce exists among warring factions, and Al Qaeda rebels aren't gaining ground. Any of these factors could change and delay a withdrawal, as worried U.S. military leaders cautiously suggest.

But the whispers and hints are gone, replaced by statements. Credit a stabilized Iraq or the pressures of a presidential race, but the leave-taking has begun.

For Obama, the past week was a gift. Challenged by McCain to prove his foreign-policy chops, Obama could have sleepwalked through a war-zone junket. But Iraqi leader al-Maliki essentially embraced his position for a withdrawal by the end of 2010. Obama's visit to Afghanistan allowed him to repeat a pledge to upgrade U.S. military numbers there to face an ascendent terrorist threat.

McCain's team must wonder what hit them. The senator found his stay-the-course message on Iraq disowned by nearly everyone. He was left to rail against Obama's inexperience and past vote against extra troops for Iraq, which McCain credits for today's relative peace.

Talk of a withdrawal timetable may neutralize the hot topic of Iraq in the presidential race. But that's only a short-run effect. The bigger, more important result may be an end to a disastrous chapter in the history of two countries.

Candidates' positions on Iraq differ less than you'd think

It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall in Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office a few days ago when the call came from the U.S. Embassy, demanding that he "clarify" his endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's plan to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq in 16 months.

(Photos, left to right - In March: Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham landing in Baghdad / Tech. Sgt. Jeffrey Allen, Reuters; On Monday: Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus in Baghdad / Ssg. Lorie Jewell, AP)

Not only did that boost the credibility of the Democrat's plan, it contradicted President Bush's position that there should be no timetable for a U.S. pullout. A few hours later, U.S. officials transmitted al-Maliki's statement that his remarks to the German magazine Der Spiegel had been "misunderstood (and) mistranslated."

Problem fixed? Apparently not. On Monday, as Obama visited Baghdad, al-Maliki's spokesman defiantly repeated the timetable idea, in English this time, saying the Iraqis would prefer to have U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of 2010.

This tense back-and-forth was a vivid reminder that as conditions improve in Iraq, the U.S. is losing its ability to dictate terms to the sovereign government it has worked so hard to put in place. Less noticed is that the rapidly shifting events are beginning to make the presidential candidates' debate over Iraq seem oddly out of sync with reality.

Obama and Republican John McCain are maximizing their differences when they talk to voters, but in practical terms there's less and less daylight between them.

Rhetorically, Obama backs a fixed timetable for withdrawing American troops while McCain wants to stay as long as "victory" takes and beyond. But if the Iraqis want the U.S. out and they prove capable of taking over, both ideas lead to the same end on about the same schedule.

It's difficult, for example, to imagine a President McCain insisting on keeping U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely if Iraq's government demands that they leave. Al-Maliki is acknowledging the reality that most Iraqis and most Iraqi politicians want U.S. forces out, at least as soon as they are confident that their own government can protect them.

At the same time, it's equally difficult to imagine a President Obama insisting on an inflexible withdrawal timetable if that means squandering security gains won with great American sacrifice. Though Obama has repeatedly insisted on a timetable, he has pointedly not said that every U.S. troop will be gone when the timetable ends. In fact, he has promised to leave a "residual force" of undefined size in Iraq, and carefully left himself an escape hatch in case the situation worsens. "You've got to make sure the country doesn't collapse," he says.

Thanks largely to the troop surge that Obama opposed, violence has lessened to the point that a timetable seems less and less unthinkable to its fiercest opponents, provided that it's linked to success on the ground. President Bush has signed on to a "time horizon" for withdrawing U.S. troops, and McCain said Monday that U.S. troops "could be largely withdrawn" within two years because the war is being won. That's remarkably close to what Obama wants.

So while the candidates demonize and distort each other's positions, reality is drawing them closer and closer. Both also support sending additional troops to Afghanistan.

The wild card is whether U.S. forces can hand off the fighting to their Iraqi counterparts, and here the news is promising. Lt. Gen. James Dubik, who until recently was in charge of the Army's effort to build Iraqi forces, told Congress earlier this month that Iraqi units would be able to take over front-line fighting as soon as April, allowing U.S. ground troops to shift to a support role.

The presidential debate over Iraq needs a reality check. Voters would do well to understand that the familiar differences echoing from the campaign trail are less significant than the new reality emerging in Iraq.

McCain Aide Says New York Times Rejection of Iraq Essay Unfair

John McCain was unfairly treated by the New York Times, which rejected an opinion piece the Republican presidential candidate wrote on Iraq after publishing one by Democratic rival Barack Obama, a top McCain adviser said.

``I'm sure they didn't tell Obama what he had to write,'' McCain aide Mark Salter said last night in Manchester, New Hampshire, where the Arizona senator will appear at a fundraiser today. ``Is it fair? No. But we don't expect fairness from them.''

The Times decided against publishing McCain's essay because it needed the candidate to revise the article to say specifically what he planned to do in Iraq, the newspaper said on its Web site, quoting David Shipley, editor of the op-ed page. Andrew Rosenthal, editor of the newspaper's editorial and op-ed pages, said the decision to ask for changes was ``standard procedure.''

``We look forward to publishing Senator McCain's views in our paper just as we have in the past,'' Rosenthal said in a statement on the Web site. ``We have published at least seven Op- Ed pieces by Senator McCain since 1996.''

The spat comes as Obama, 46, is on a weeklong overseas tour, including stops over the weekend in Afghanistan and Iraq, to burnish his foreign policy credentials. McCain and Obama have skirmished over Iraq policy, with McCain saying President George W. Bush's troop increase has helped quell violence and Obama calling for a timetable for bringing U.S. troops home.

In his July 14 essay in the New York Times, Obama said he would shift the focus of U.S. military operations from Iraq and send as many as 10,000 more U.S. troops to fight in Afghanistan.

`Is What It Is'

Earlier yesterday, when asked whether he felt Obama was getting unfair coverage because of his overseas trip this week, McCain said he would campaign as usual. ``It is what it is,'' McCain said.

Over the years, McCain, 71, and the New York Times have had a high-profile relationship.

When McCain was shot down in 1967 by the North Vietnamese, the Times put the story of his capture on its front page. At the time, McCain's father was commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific. The newspaper also put on its front page news of McCain's release as a prisoner of war five-and-a-half years later.

Earlier this year, the Times suggested, again in a front-page story, that McCain had had a romantic relationship with a telecommunications lobbyist about the time he considered running for president in 2000. McCain flatly denied that charge.

The Times endorsed McCain in the Republican primary.

In Iraq, senator finds support for troop pullout plan

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama conferred with senior Iraqi leaders, US officials, and military commanders yesterday, as a spokesman for the Iraqi government declared that it would like US combat forces to complete their withdrawal in 2010.

The comments by spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh marked the second time in recent days that a senior Iraqi had endorsed a timetable for US withdrawal that is roughly similar to the one advocated by Obama. Dabbagh suggested a combat force pullout could be completed by the end of 2010, which would be about seven months longer than Obama's 16-month formulation.

Dabbagh made the statement after Obama's meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has recently faced pressure from the White House to clarify published comments that he supported Obama's 16-month plan.

Dabbagh declared that his government was working "on a real timetable which Iraqis set" and the 2010 deadline was "an Iraqi vision."

The White House responded quickly to Dabbagh's remarks, which, along with Maliki's earlier comments, have been a thorny political problem for an administration that has opposed attaching firm dates to troop withdrawals as it negotiates the future US-Iraqi relationship.

"We don't think that talking about specific negotiating tactics or your negotiating position in the press is the best way to negotiate a deal," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, suggesting that Dabbagh was responding to domestic pressure.

Dabbagh said Maliki did not discuss troop withdrawals with his visitor. "Senator Barack Obama is a candidate, and we are talking to the administration which is in power," he said. But in many ways - from the red carpet rolled out at Maliki's residence to Obama's seat of honor next to Maliki during formal consultations - he was treated like a visiting head of state.

The White House has said that Maliki and President Bush had reached an agreement to set a "time horizon" for the withdrawal of US combat troops. But administration officials have steadfastly declined to indicate what that time horizon might be.

"Obama is closer to Iraqi opinion on the issue of withdrawal of US forces," said Ali al-Adeeb, a top official in Maliki's Dawa Party. "We don't know him personally, but we like his opinion and his calls to set a timetable to withdraw forces."

The presumptive Democratic presidential candidate arrived in Iraq yesterday morning, traveling as part of a congressional delegation that includes Senators Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, and Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, both critics of the war.

Obama and the other senators released a statement late yesterday noting that Iraqis want an "aspirational timeline, with a clear date," for the departure of US combat forces.

"Prime Minister Maliki told us that while the Iraqi people deeply appreciate the sacrifices of American soldiers, they do not want an open-ended presence of US combat forces. The prime minister said that now is an appropriate time to start to plan for the reorganization of our troops in Iraq - including their numbers and missions. He stated his hope that US combat forces could be out of Iraq in 2010," the statement said.

The senators also acknowledged a significant decline in violence in Iraq but added that while there has been some forward movement on political progress, reconciliation, and economic develop- ment, there has not been enough to bring lasting stability to Iraq.

Obama, a first-term senator who is seeking to convince voters that he has enough foreign policy experience to succeed in the Oval Office, is scheduled to travel to Jordan, Israel, Germany, France, and Britain by the end of the week.

Interviewed on NBC's "Today" show yesterday morning, Obama's Republican rival, Senator John McCain, said he "was glad" Obama was meeting with General David Petraeus, the top US commander, and hearing firsthand about the buildup of US troops over the last year.

"I hope he will have a chance to admit that he badly misjudged the situation, and that he was wrong when he said the surge wouldn't work," McCain said.

The US delegation's first stop in Iraq was the southern city of Basra, where the Iraqi army - with support from British and US troops - recently wrested control from extremist Shi'ite militias. The senators did not venture into the city center, where 30,000 Iraqi soldiers patrol the streets.

In Baghdad, a red carpet with yellow trim was unfurled at 1:50 p.m. outside Maliki's residence.

Ten minutes later, the senators and their entourages arrived, accompanied by US Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and David M. Satterfield, the State Department's Iraq coordinator. After meeting for nearly an hour with Maliki, Obama declined to say what they discussed.

Obama's convoy arrived next at the residence of the Iraq president, Jalal Talabani, who was with chief of staff Naseer al-Ani and two other senior advisers.

Iraq's Electoral Commission Urges Postponing Provincial Polls

Iraq's electoral commission says provincial elections due in October should be postponed because of parliament's delay in passing preparatory legislation.

The commission wrote to Iraqi lawmakers Sunday warning there is not enough time to hold provincial elections in October under international standards.

It urged parliament to quickly approve legislation on procedures for the elections to allow for a vote by the end of the year.

Washington hopes the provincial polls will give Iraq's Sunni Arab minority a greater say in local government. Iraqi Sunnis largely boycotted the last provincial elections in January 2005.

Meanwhile, Iraq's parliament speaker has welcomed the return of the main Iraqi Sunni political bloc to the country's Shi'ite-led government.

The Iraqi Accordance Front rejoined the Cabinet of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Saturday after a year-long boycott.

Iraqi speaker Mahmoud al-Mashadani said Sunday the move gives the government a boost as it focuses on investment and reconstruction projects.

In violence on Sunday, Iraqi officials say U.S. forces shot and killed two relatives of the governor of northern Iraq's Salahuddin province. The U.S. military says its troops fired in self-defense at two armed men who were later determined to be related to the governor.

The military also says Iraqi forces killed six suspected militants during an operation in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, militants in Iraq who claim to have kidnapped five Britons released a video saying one of the hostages has committed suicide. British newspaper "The Sunday Times" says its office in Baghdad received the video.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the video message is a very distressing development.

The hostages, a British computer expert and his four bodyguards, were abducted in May 2007 during a visit to an Iraqi finance ministry office.

Iraqi government offers Obama hints of backing on combat troop withdrawals by 2010

Iraq's top leaders hosted U.S. presidential contender Barack Obama on Monday and offered an apparent sign of shared purpose on hopes of withdrawing American combat troops from the country by 2010.

The comments by Iraq's government spokesman — as the Illinois senator toured Iraq for the first time in more than two years — stopped short of setting any fixed timetable or any open endorsement of Obama's pledge to pull out combat forces in 16 months.

But it roughly mirrors Obama's schedule and offered another glimpse of Iraq's growing confidence to push for a broad framework on cutting U.S. troop levels as violence in Iraq drops and Iraqi security forces expand their roles.

"We are hoping that in 2010 that combat troops will withdraw from Iraq," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said after Obama met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — who has struggled for days to clarify Iraq's position on a possible timetable for a U.S. troop pullout.

Iraq's Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi, said after meeting Obama that Iraqi leaders share "a common interest ... to schedule the withdrawal of American troops."

"I'd be happy if we reach an agreement to say, for instance, the 31st of December 2010" would mark the departure of the last U.S. combat unit, he said — then noting that any such goal could be revised depending on threats and the pace of training for Iraqi security forces.

In Washington, White House press secretary Dana Perino said Iraqis are driving harder in negotiations on troop levels, but the United States will resist any "arbitrary" timing.

"It will not be a date that you just pluck out of thin air. It will not be something that Americans say, 'We're going to do — we're going to leave at this date,' which is what some have suggested," she said.

The Bush administration has refused to set specific troop level targets, but last week offered to discuss a "general time horizon" for a U.S. combat troop exit.

Perino acknowledged the Iraqis might be trying to use the U.S. presidential election for leverage in negotiations over the future of the American military mission in Iraq.

"I think that a lot of other people look through the lens of a 2008 presidential election," Perino said. "Might they be? Sure. I mean, it's possible."

Obama made no detailed statements on his meetings, which included Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

"Excellent conversation," he said as he left talks with al-Hashemi in his gold-hued reception room and promised to give his full impressions after his stop in Iraq wraps up Tuesday and he heads to Jordan and then Israel.

"Very constructive," Obama added after leaving a meeting with al-Maliki — who was quoted last week by a German magazine apparently supporting Obama's 16-month withdrawal proposal. The government claimed his remarks were misunderstood.

It was the third leg of Obama's tour of the region, which has included stops in Kuwait and Afghanistan.

The counterpoint was clear: Obama opposed the Iraq war from the start and views the battle against the resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan as America's most critical fight.

But Iraq is not the same place as when Obama last visited in January 2006.

Both Sunni insurgents, including al-Qaida in Iraq, and Shiite militias have suffered significant blows. And security forces in Baghdad — once the scene of near daily car bombs and sectarian killings — has made clear gains since last year's troop build up of nearly 30,000 soldiers.

Obama's challenger, Senator John McCain, has tried to hammer Obama on his critical remarks before the so-called "surge."

In an interview Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America," McCain said he hoped Obama would now "have the opportunity to see the success of the surge."

"This is the same strategy that he voted against, railed against," McCain said. "He was wrong about the surge. It is succeeding and we are winning."

All five surge brigades have left Iraq, but there are still about 147,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq, more than in early 2007.

Obama was scheduled to hold briefings with senior American diplomats and military commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, who directs U.S. forces in Iraq.

Obama — traveling in a congressional delegation with senators Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, and Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska — first arrived in the city of Basra in Iraq's mostly Shiite south.

Basra is the center for about 4,000 British troops involved mostly in training Iraqi forces. An Iraqi-led offensive begun in March reclaimed control of most of the city from Shiite militia believed linked to Iran.

In Baghdad, the delegation traveled in convoys of black SUVs with tinted windows. Obama attended some meeting wearing a dark suit and tie despite temperatures well above 43 degrees Celsius (109 Fahrenheit).

Security around the city was not noticeably tightened, but it's difficult to gauge in a place with permanent checkpoints, concrete blast walls and military helicopter surveillance. No major attacks were reported around the capital.

Obama's foreign stops, which will conclude with a swing through Europe, were seen as an attempt to burnish his foreign policy credentials and address challenges by McCain that he is too inexperienced to lead in a time of war and global risks.

It also gave Obama a taste of some of the difficulties in Iraq that the next president will inherit. Important negotiations on a pact defining the future U.S. military commitment in Iraq has been stalled.

American diplomats hoped to reach a final accord by the end of the month, but it now seems the goal is a stopgap "bridge" document that would maintain the status for U.S. forces once a U.N. mandate on their presence expires at the end of the year.

There also are pockets of concern around the country.

Bombings and slayings have been creeping higher in the northern city of Mosul, the last main urban stronghold for al-Qaida in Iraq. Insurgents also remain entrenched in the Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad and a main gateway to the city. Iraqi authorities have announced plans to send more forces into the area.

Suicide death' of UK Iraq hostage

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is demanding the "immediate and unconditional" release of British hostages being held in Iraq, following a militant group's claim that one of five men they kidnapped last year had committed suicide.

A video passed to the Sunday Times newspaper claimed that the man - known only as Jason - killed himself on May 25, four days short of the first anniversary of the five men's abduction.

A second hostage was shown on the video pleading for Government action to speed their release and warning that he was suffering physically and psychologically after 14 months in captivity.

The Foreign Office said it had no independent verification of the claims in the video and could not comment on their veracity.

But the Prime Minister confirmed that intensive efforts were under way behind the scenes to find a solution to the situation. Mr Brown raised the plight of the hostages with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki during a visit to Baghdad on Saturday.

The five men - an IT consultant named Peter Moore and four bodyguards whose identities have not been confirmed - were kidnapped in May last year from the Iraqi finance ministry by a Shia group which is demanding the release of prisoners from US detention.

A statement signed by the Shia Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which was passed with the video to the Sunday Times, accuses the British Government of failing to respond to messages from the kidnappers and their captives.

"This procrastination and foot-dragging and lack of seriousness on the part of the British Government has prolonged their psychological deterioration, pushing one of them, Jason, to commit suicide," the statement said. "He surprised our brethren, who were taking care of him, with his suicide."

The video featured a still photograph of a man in a football shirt who was identified by the militant as Jason.

The second hostage - understood to be a father-of-two from Scotland called Alan - was shown saying: "Physically, I'm not doing well. Psychologically, I'm doing a lot worse. I want to see my family again," he said. "I would like for the British Government to please hurry and get this resolved as soon as possible."

British hostage in Iraq is dead

A Shiite militia that claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of five Britons in Iraq more than a year ago said one of its hostages committed suicide, a British newspaper reported.

The Sunday Times of London published what it said was a statement in a video it obtained from the group through an intermediary in Iraq.

The video, available on the Times Web site late Saturday night, shows an Arabic-language statement claiming that one of the hostages — identified only as Jason — killed himself on May 25. A photograph, apparently of Jason, is affixed to the top left corner of the statement.

The newspaper said the statement blamed the British government for ignoring previous statements that the kidnappers and the captives have made. In the past, the militia has demanded that that all British forces be withdrawn from Iraq and that Iraqis held by U.S.-led forces be freed.

"This procrastination and foot-dragging and lack of seriousness on the part of the British government has prolonged their psychological deterioration, pushing one of them, Jason, to commit suicide on 25/5/2008," the Times quoted the statement as saying.

It was not immediately clear which hostage the group was referring to.

Five men — information technology consultant Peter Moore and four guards — were kidnapped from the Iraqi Finance Ministry compound in Baghdad in a brazen raid in May 29, 2007. Two of the guards are named Jason and the others are Alan and Alec. Their surnames have been withheld at their families' request.

In December, a man identified as Jason was featured in a hostage video aired on Al-Arabiya television. Looking haggard and occasionally glancing down as if to read a piece of paper, Jason said he and his fellow captives felt they had been forgotten.

Like the video carried by The Sunday Times, the Al-Arabiya broadcast showed a statement and identified the men's captors as the Shiite Islamic Resistance in Iraq.

The British government said Saturday night that it could not confirm the veracity of the latest video or verify its claims.

But British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who had just left Iraq after meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Saturday, called The Sunday Times report a "very distressing development" said that he was taking it seriously.

"I raised the case of these men with PM Maliki," Brown said in a statement. "We both share a desire to see them returned safely to their families. I call on those holding the hostages to release them immediately and unconditionally."

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called hostage-taking "disgusting" and deplored the "deep distress and concern" he said the report would cause the families of the five men.

The video carried by the Times shows another hostage, speaking against a blank wall and apparently reading something. The hostage, identified by the Times as Alan, appeals for the British government to release Iraqi prisoners, "especially female and religious prisoners."

"I'd like that to be done within one month," he says.

He adds that despite what he calls "good treatment" from the Iraqi resistance, he was not doing well.

"Psychologically, I'm doing a lot worse. I want to see my family again. I'd like for the British government to please hurry," he says. It was unclear from the video exactly when he made the statement, although in it he says he has been in captivity more than a year.

There did not appear to be any footage of Jason, who purportedly committed suicide. The Times reported that its unidentified intermediary said proof of the man's death would only be provided if the British government agreed to negotiate.

The fate of the five men has received increased scrutiny in Britain, particularly following the first broadcast featuring Jason and another video, aired in February, showing Moore.

In late February the families of the men released their own video, read by Pauline Sweeny, Moore's stepmother, pleading for their release. The kidnappers apparently responded a month later with a posting on a militant Web site rejecting the plea as inspired by the British government.

In May, the former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey lent his voice to the families' appeal, addressing the kidnappers as "honorable men" and "men of faith."

UK plans pull out of its troops from Iraq early next year

British troops in Iraq might be withdrawn as early as next year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has indicated, while hailing the improved security situation in the war-torn country.
Brown who was on a day's visit to Iraq yesterday said Iraqi forces would soon take over the Basra airport, the main British military headquarters.

He outlined a road map for training and strengthening of Iraqi security forces that might ultimately aid withdrawal of UK troops before the scheduled general election in 2010.

Brown told British soldiers that they were on the final leg of duties in Iraq. Last October, he had stated that the troops in Iraq would be cut to 2,500 by spring, but there were still 4,100 troops holed up at the Basra airport.

According to a report in The Observer, Brown, however, made it clear that he would not "set any artificial timetable." His statement comes a day after White House announced that the US and the Iraqi authorities had agreed a "general time horizon" for the "further reduction of US combat forces in Iraq."

Contrasting goals in Iraq

WITH FRIDAY'S announcement by the White House that the United States and Iraq have agreed to set a "general time horizon" for a US troop withdrawal, it is increasingly obvious that Iraqi political leaders are calling the shots when it comes to a future role for the United States, and that President Bush has not learned anything about Iraq in the last five years.

Since November 2007, when Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed on a declaration of principles that would provide for the rules of engagement for US forces beginning on Jan. 1, 2009, when the United Nations mandate legitimizing the US occupation expires, Maliki has continued to try to force the Bush administration to accept their policies.

The Bush administration envisions a prolonged US military presence in Iraq with hundreds of large bases, and with American forces free to conduct military operations against what they perceive as Iraq's internal and external enemies. The administration says this would achieve victory over the terrorists, who in its view were preventing Iraq from becoming a peaceful, stable democracy allied to the United States that could help contain Iran. Despite Friday's announcement, the president still insists he is against an artificial timetable for withdrawal.

The Iraqis see it differently. Maliki argues that the terrorists have been defeated and the United States needs to set a withdrawal date if it wishes to remain when the UN mandate expires. Why the difference between Maliki and Bush? There are at least four reasons.

First, Maliki knows that if the United States does not set a withdrawal date, the status of forces agreement, or even a memorandum of understanding, will not be approved by the Iraqi Parliament. A majority of the Iraqi Parliament has signed a letter to that effect. Iraq's elected legislators know that the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people want the American forces out and believe that these foreign forces are actually causing much of the violence. The American people agree that the United States should have never invaded and want US forces to leave as quickly as possible. But, since Bush will not submit the agreement to Congress, he can ignore the wishes of the American people.

Second, there were not that many foreign terrorists to begin with. Despite the administration's claim that we are fighting them (Al Qaeda) over there (in Iraq) so we do not have to fight them over here (the United States), the number of Al Qaeda loyalists who came into the country after the US invasion never numbered more than 2,000. Moreover, Al Qaeda in Iraq is an overwhelmingly Iraqi organization with domestic aims. When members began killing Iraqis and tried to force a rigid version of Islam on their Iraqi collaborators, the Iraqis turned on them. Once the United States sets a date for a complete withdrawal, Al Qaeda in Iraq will lose what little support it has from the Iraqi people.

Third, with the rising price of oil, Iraq is awash in money and no longer needs US assistance to rebuild its war-torn infrastructure. When the United States invaded, oil was $25 a barrel. Now it is about $130. The Iraqi government now produces 2.5 million barrels a day, and with the contracts it has recently signed with Western companies, it soon will begin producing even more. This means that the Iraqis will be bringing in $100 billion to $200 billion a year.

Fourth, the Shi'ite dominated Iraqi government is not as concerned about the threat from Iran as the Bush administration. Many of Iraq's Shi'ite leaders lived in Iran during the regime of Saddam Hussein and see the Iranians as Shi'ite allies with whom they can and should have a close relationship - unlike Bush who sees the Iranians as the second coming of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.

As recently as June, when the president said "you know, of course, we're there at their invitation," Bush never envisioned them actually telling us to leave before his mission was accomplished. Just as he misjudged and mismanaged the situation going in, it is clear that he is equally clueless about when to get out and regain control of US policy.

Army's History of Iraq After Hussein Faults Pentagon

A new Army history of the service's performance in Iraq immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein faults military and civilian leaders for their planning for the war's aftermath, and it suggests that the Pentagon's current way of using troops is breaking the Army National Guard and Army Reserve.

The study, "On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign," is an unclassified and unhindered look at U.S. Army operations in Iraq from May 2003 to January 2005. That critical era of the war has drawn widespread criticism because of a failure to anticipate the rise of an Iraqi insurgency and because policymakers provided too few U.S. troops and no strategy to maintain order after Iraq's decades-old regime was overthrown.

Donald P. Wright and Col. Timothy R. Reese, who authored the report along with the Army's Contemporary Operations Study Team, conclude that U.S. commanders and civilian leaders were too focused on only the military victory and lacked a realistic vision of what Iraq would look like following that triumph.

"The transition to a new campaign was not well thought out, planned for, and prepared for before it began," write Wright and Reese, historians at the Army's Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. "Additionally, the assumptions about the nature of post-Saddam Iraq on which the transition was planned proved to be largely incorrect."

The results of those errors, they add, were that U.S. forces and their allies lacked an operational and strategic plan for success in Iraq, as well as the resources to carry out a plan.

Their analysis is to be released tomorrow, but the 696-page document was posted last night on the Army's Combined Arms Center's Web site. The New York Times first reported the study's findings yesterday.

The study also calls into question the focus of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on issues such as a modernization of the U.S. military, rather than on the war.

"The intense desire to continue DOD's transformation to smaller and lighter forces, to implement a perceived revolution in military affairs in the information age, and to savor the euphoria over seemingly easy successes in Afghanistan using those techniques seemed to outweigh searching through the past for insights into the future," the study reports.

It also reports that Army National Guard and Reserve soldiers have demonstrated in Iraq and Afghanistan that they "are a fully capable, and indeed, an absolutely essential part of the Army." But it warns that "the price paid by reservists and communities to sustain the long and repetitive mobilizations, however, may not be sustainable in the future."

The Army study is a follow-up to "On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom," which looked at the initiation of combat operations in Iraq through April 2003. The new work picks up from the moment President Bush announced the end of major combat operations on May 1, 2003, and goes through the January 2005 Iraqi elections. The authors make clear that the Army never thought it would need such a study, largely because few people believed the war would last much beyond 2003.