Iraq Notebook
Thousands more Marines to go to Iraq

	AP Abdul-Aziz al Hakim says Iraq's most influential Shiite leader dislikes the U.S. governing plan for the new Iraq.
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Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also approved the mobilization of 9,900 Army, 1,290 Navy and 3,208 Air Force reserve personnel for the rotation, which will begin in January to replace the 130,000 troops who will be completing one-year tours of duty in Iraq.

Rumsfeld also put on alert 4,228 Army, 1,290 Navy and 2,381 Air Force reservists to let them know they may be mobilized for duty in Iraq. The specific units alerted and mobilized yesterday were not disclosed; the Pentagon says they can expect to be on active duty for up to 18 months.

The Pentagon had announced Nov. 6 most details of its rotation plan, which called for relying more heavily on the National Guard and Reserve, while reducing the total number of U.S. troops to about 105,000 by the time the rotation was completed in May.

Although no numbers were provided by the Pentagon, it appears the total number by May will be closer to 110,000, counting the additional Marines.

Rumsfeld also approved yesterday the mobilization of 2,995 Army, 100 Marine Corps and five Air Force reservists for a rotation of U.S. forces in Afghanistan in the spring. That brings to 6,906 the National Guard and Reserve personnel who have been mobilized for that rotation. The main active-duty unit in the rotation is the Army's 25th Infantry Division.

Top Shiite cleric condemns U.S. plan for government

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq's most influential cleric yesterday strongly criticized a U.S. initiative to create an Iraqi government as flawed and un-Islamic.

Through his aides, Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani, the primary leader of the nation's majority Shiites, said that Iraqis must directly elect their new interim government in elections planned for June. The current U.S. plan calls an indirect vote through an assembly representing all of Iraq's ethnic and religious groups.

Sistani's reported displeasure with the U.S. plan for the transfer of power in Iraq could complicate the Bush administration's efforts to create a transitional government, allowing the United States to end its occupation of the country.

Sistani also insisted the new Iraqi government must have a stronger Islamic character than the one planned.

"He didn't find anything that assures Islamic identity," said Abdul-Aziz al Hakim, a Shiite cleric and a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, in Najaf, Sistani's home. "There should have been a stipulation which prevents legislating anything that contradicts Islam in the new Iraq."

Officials with Hakim's political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said he recently met with Sistani.

Direct elections would likely mean domination by Shiites, who make up 60 percent of the population, which could be resisted by Sunni Muslims, who have traditionally controlled Iraq's government and have led recent attacks on U.S. troops.

Sunni Muslims dominated the military and political establishments under Saddam's rule.

Iraqi girl recovering after heart surgery in Israel

HOLON, Israel — An Iraqi girl, born with a life-threatening heart defect, was recovering in an Israeli hospital last night after emergency surgery and a journey that would have been unthinkable under an Iraqi ruler who treated Israel as the most bitter of enemies.

Volunteers who worked to ferry the infant from her Kurdish village near the northern Iraq city of Tikrit said the open-heart procedure in Holon, Israel, appeared a success. But they cautioned that postoperative bleeding meant that the girl's condition was fragile.

The operation to repair Bayan Jabbar's reversed arteries — a potentially fatal deformity — was done under the sponsorship of Israel-based Save a Child's Heart, which arranges emergency heart surgeries for children and is known for shuttling more than 500 children from foreign nations, the West Bank and Gaza Strip for surgery at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, outside Tel Aviv.

Also...

The Italian mission in Baghdad was hit and damaged by a rocket or mortar strike last night, but there were no injuries, a Foreign Ministry official said in Rome. ... A pipeline near the village of Sharqat in northern Iraqi oil fields was ablaze yesterday, but coalition officials said the fire appeared to have been a lit pool of oil at the site of a previous break. ... Officials said the U.S. military has paid more than $1.66 million in damages to Iraqi civilians for personal injury, damage and wrongful deaths. Money has been paid out in more than 4,700 of the 10,000 claims submitted by Iraqis. So far, 3,800 claims have been rejected; the rest are being considered.

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