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Four US troops killed; Iraqis spar on constitution

Posted on: Wednesday, 10 August 2005, 08:15 CDT

By Alastair Macdonald

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi insurgents savaged a U.S. patrol overnight, killing four soldiers and wounding six after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged Iraq's leaders to end arguments over a constitution to help undermine the revolt.

A sparse U.S. military statement on Wednesday gave no details of the attack shortly before midnight near Baiji, an oil refining town 180 km (115 miles) north of Baghdad.

But a large crater on the highway and an account from Iraqi police suggested U.S. vehicles had been struck by one of what appears to be a new breed of roadside bomb or land mine, more powerful than those that have killed hundreds of troops over the past two years and capable of penetrating American armor.

"Clearly, improvised explosive devices ... some with newer technologies these days, are going to change our tactics," General Richard Myers told a news briefing at the Pentagon less than two hours before the Baiji attack.

Washington's most senior general was responding to a land mine explosion that killed 14 Marines in an armored amphibious vehicle near Haditha, northwest of Baghdad, on Aug 3 and to half a dozen other heavy losses in the past two months.

In Baiji, children played around the crater with scraps of U.S. military equipment, including camouflage clothing bearing a soldier's nametag. Local police said they had seen two wrecked Humvee patrol vehicles and a heavy armored vehicle, all burned.

In other violence, six people, including two policemen, were killed and 14 wounded in Baghdad when a suicide bomber drove a car at a police patrol in the west of the capital.

Rumsfeld told the same Pentagon briefing that bloodshed could rise ahead of a referendum on the constitution, scheduled for Oct 15., and a general election due two months later.

"Violence could again increase for a time, as it did during the last elections," he said.

CONSTITUTION DEADLINE

Rumsfeld, who flew to Baghdad two weeks ago and told Iraqi leaders drafting a constitution that it was "time to get on with it," said pushing on with that process, due to produce a text by Monday, would help undermine support for the Sunni Arab rebels.

"It's important that they stick with their timetable."

Iraq's U.S.-backed government believes advancing a political process which began with elections in January will defuse the insurgency, a loose alliance of foreign Sunni Muslim militants and Saddam Hussein loyalists that shows no signs of weakening.

President Jalal Talabani is hosting a series of meetings this week aimed at breaking deadlock among leaders of Iraq's many communities, including the Shi'ite Muslim majority, ethnic Kurds and Arab Sunnis.

They are under intense U.S. pressure to meet the deadline and the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been prominent on the sidelines of the talks.

Talabani's spokesman, Kamran Qaradaghi, said in a statement on Wednesday that meetings since Sunday had demonstrated a common resolve to agree a draft constitution by a self-imposed Aug. 15 deadline. Among key issues was the extent of autonomy granted to federal regions, especially Kurdistan, he said.

Dividing up oil revenues was also a subject of discussion, as was the fate of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, which the Kurds want to annex as capital of their northern region.

The role of Islam in the new state is also a bone of contention between religious and secular groups.

Even if the charter is drafted on time, many Iraqis are preoccupied with instability and poor services which their new leaders promised to end when they came to power.

Editorialists in Baghdad's newspapers expressed frustration at the debate among senior leaders and accused them of being out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people.

"People in Iraq are waiting with bated breath for an agreement that brings political stability to this country," wrote Abdelatif al-Moussawi in Azzaman. "But Iraqis today are suffering more than ever from divisions among their leaders."

The editorial in al-Sabah al-Jadeed said: "The time has come for all Iraqis to realize that they are all in this together and that the language of threats and imposing realities will only widen divisions and create civil strife."

(Additional reporting by Amer Amery in Baiji and Hiba Moussa, Mussab Al-Khairalla and Andrew Hammond in Baghdad)

Source: REUTERS

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