Iraq Notebook
White House misses document deadline

	KHALID MOHAMMED / AP Iraqis take cover after an explosion rocked the center of the city of Fallujah yesterday. Afterward residents shouted at the authorities that their neighborhood had become a target because the U.S.-appointed mayor and other officials worked there.
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WASHINGTON — The White House failed to meet a Senate deadline yesterday for turning over documents and providing access to witnesses, setting up a possible showdown with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating problems with the prewar intelligence on Iraq.

The CIA and the U.S. State Department, however, went a good distance toward complying with similar requests the committee made of officials at their agencies.

Part of the dispute with the White House appears to center on requests for highly classified intelligence reports — known as the president's daily brief — that summarize the most critical international developments and new intelligence, and is delivered to the president each morning.

The standoff with the White House is certain to add to the tension between the committee and the administration over the inquiry, and fuel criticism from Democrats that the administration is trying to escape accountability for its pre-war claims about Baghdad's alleged illicit weapons programs.

"Despite the fact that they don't have jurisdiction over the White House, we want to continue working with them to help them in their work to review the intelligence relating to Iraq," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. He noted that the latest request had come on Thursday, giving the administration just one day to respond.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued remarks indicating he thinks the White House does not fully understand the stakes of the investigation. But he stopped short of threatening to issue subpoenas.

Roberts praised what he described as "a good-faith response" from the CIA and the State Department in their efforts to comply. Congressional sources said they had not heard from the Department of Defense, although Pentagon officials said they were eager to work with the committee.

A spokeswoman for Sen. John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV, the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, said the senator did not see yesterday's deadline as "hard and fast. ... This was about telling (agencies in the executive branch) that we're serious."

Saddam's birthplace might be base of attacks against U.S.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. forces cordoned off Saddam Hussein's birthplace yesterday in an effort to determine whether the village is being used as a base for planning attacks against U.S. troops.

Hundreds of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police descended on the village of Al Awja, about 100 miles north of Baghdad, before dawn, sealed off all roads leading into the area, erected a barbed-wire fence and laid spirals of razor wire around the village.

It appeared the operation was not aimed at catching Saddam, but at registering the village's 3,500 people and making sure outsiders are quickly identified by Iraqi police. All adults were required to register for identity cards that would allow them "controlled access" in and out of the village.

2 Iraqis killed, 2 U.S. troops hurt in marketplace dispute

ABU GHRAIB, Iraq — U.S. troops battled Iraqi rioters when a dispute over a marketplace exploded into anti-American fury yesterday.

Two Iraqi civilians were killed, and 17 others and two U.S. soldiers were reported wounded at the marketplace clashes.

The bloody, on-and-off clashes in Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad, broke out yesterday morning when U.S. troops tried to clear market stalls off a main road, Iraqi police reported.

More soldiers participating in expanded home-leave program

WASHINGTON — The home-leave program for troops serving in Iraq is being expanded to fly more people out of the region and bring them to more U.S. airports, the military said yesterday.

Beginning tomorrow, some 480 soldiers, up from 280, will leave daily from the Kuwait facility where troops are gathered for departures. And they will have a choice of flying to Atlanta and Dallas as well as the previous destinations of Baltimore and Germany, officials said.

Troops had complained about spending their own money to get from the drop-off points to and from home on their two-week leaves.

Also ...

Secretary-General Kofi Annan said yesterday he is appointing an independent team to determine who was responsible for lax security before the August bombing at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 22 people and injured more than 150. ... A midafternoon explosion at the mayor's office in Fallujah shook the city, sending heavy smoke into the air and attracting angry crowds. Witnesses said Iraqi police shot and killed one local man in the melee that followed and that looters broke into the mayor's office.

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