Iraq Notebook
'Smart bombs' target empty Iraq buildings

	GETTY IMAGES, 2002 Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri is sought by U.S. officials.
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The coalition has again begun using massive and costly "smart bombs," ground-strafing AC-130 gunships and heavily armed Apache helicopters for the first time since the march to Baghdad. The display of force is intended to intimidate insurgents, U.S. officials said, but it has also frightened some city residents and surprised some military analysts.

"If your intent is only to blow up the building, then why don't you send in some engineers and blow up the buildings?" wondered Dana Robert Dillon, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the coalition's deputy chief of operations, justified the use of $1 million satellite-guided bombs on vacant buildings in urban areas.

"I would say that if I were an Iraqi citizen living in Baghdad and I knew that there were terrorists living across the street and I knew that those terrorists were making bombs, shooting Iraqi forces, shooting Iraqi civilians, shooting coalition forces, I would feel less secure," Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad.

"If I saw that house go away, if I saw those anti-coalition forces being taken out, taken to jail, I'd feel more secure."

In northern Iraq, 1,000-pound bombs were dropped on sites near Kirkuk alleged to have been used by insurgents, as soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division cordoned off large areas and detained 23 people in regional searches.

Bounty on top Saddam aide

BAGHDAD — U.S. authorities yesterday offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the capture or killing of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the most-wanted man in Iraq after deposed dictator Saddam Hussein.

Al-Douri, one of Saddam's top lieutenants before the war and No. 6 on the U.S. military's 55-member most-wanted list, is accused of being behind several recent attacks on U.S. soldiers.

The United States paid $30 million to the man who gave information on the whereabouts of Saddam's sons Odai and Qusay, leading to their deaths in a shootout with U.S. forces in the northern city of Mosul in July.

A $25 million price remains on the head of Saddam, the largest single reward offered by the United States.

Earlier this week, U.S. forces used satellite-guided missiles to destroy one of al-Douri's homes near Tikrit as they stepped up the hunt for the man who was Saddam's No. 2 man in Iraq's former ruling Revolutionary Command Council.

Provincial leader is slain

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen assassinated a provincial Iraqi official in the southern town of Diwaniyah, authorities said yesterday.

A spokesman for the Education Ministry in the capital said Hmud Kadhim, the ministry's director general in Diwaniyah province, 100 miles south of Baghdad, was fatally shot by unknown assailants Tuesday. An investigation was under way, the spokesman said.

Guerrillas have warned that they will assassinate Iraqis who collaborate with occupation authorities, including officials like Kadhim, whose job made him one of the top officials in Diwaniyah province.

Police said yesterday that two policemen were wounded the day before when assailants tossed a grenade at a police station in the northern city of Mosul.

Also yesterday, a roadside bomb went off in the southern city of Basra as a British civilian convoy was passing by, damaging a vehicle, British spokesman Maj. Hisham Halawi said.

U.N. to consider Iraq timetable

UNITED NATIONS — The United States and Britain plan a new U.N. resolution this month backing decisions by Iraqi leaders and the Bush administration to accelerate implementing Iraqi sovereignty, diplomats said yesterday.

The Iraqi Governing Council is due to present a timetable to the United Nations for a transition to a provisional and then a permanent sovereignty by Dec. 15, although envoys said Tuesday it may be submitted well before that date.

The United States and Britain then want the 15-member U.N. Security Council to endorse the schedule in a resolution, it is hoped before the end of the year.

The timetable is expected to include the following elements: a "basic law" written by February followed by indirect elections for a transitional assembly by May 31. This group would elect a provisional government by June 30.

The transitional phase would end with a new constitution, expected to be completed by March 15, 2005, followed by an election for a new government chosen by the general public by the end of 2005.

Officer testifies in Iraqi beating

TIKRIT — A U.S. Army officer told a military hearing in Iraq yesterday he was wrong to fire his pistol near a detained Iraqi's head, but vowed he would sacrifice his life to protect his men.

His voice breaking with emotion, Lt. Col. Allen West of the 4th Infantry Division said he had told the families of the men and women in his battalion before leaving for Iraq that he would bring them home alive.

West said he believed the detained Iraqi, a policeman named Yahya Jhodri Hamoody, had information about plots to attack U.S. troops when he was brought in for questioning at Taji, just north of Baghdad, around Aug. 20.

Other officers testifying in the preliminary hearing at a base in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit have said the plots included a plan to kill West, the most-senior soldier charged with assaulting Iraqis since the invasion last March.

The military has charged West with beating up Hamoody, firing a pistol near his head and threatening to kill him.

"I know the method I used was not the right method ... I was going to do anything to intimidate and scare him, but I was not going to endanger his life," West said.

The presiding officer, Lt. Col. Jimmy Davis, said he would make a recommendation — one option is for court-martial proceedings — although it is nonbinding and would be handed to the general in command of the 4th Infantry Division.

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