Iraq Notebook
Universal care is right for Iraq, Thompson says

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Congressional Democrats have criticized the administration for helping Iraq to establish universal health care without doing the same for U.S. citizens.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said yesterday there are major differences between the two countries that defy simple comparisons.

"Even if you don't have health insurance," said Thompson, who toured medical facilities in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Tikrit on Saturday and Sunday, "you are still taken care of in America. That certainly could be defined as universal coverage. Every American's health care is far superior to what the health care is in Iraq."

Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, ranking Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, responded yesterday, saying the U.S. system doesn't sufficiently meet the needs of 44 million uninsured Americans.

Iraq nears $6 billion in oil exports

UNITED NATIONS — Iraq has exported almost $6 billion in crude oil since the fall of Saddam Hussein's government nearly a year ago, the U.S.-led authority governing Iraq disclosed yesterday.

The Coalition Provisional Authority said in an Internet posting that it had deposited $5.99 billion in its Development Fund for Iraq as of Friday.

That was $357 million more than deposited as of the previous week, according to the CPA Web site. Under a May 22 U.N. Security Council resolution, the CPA is required to deposit all the proceeds of Iraqi oil exports into the fund. The resolution was intended to ensure Iraq's U.S.-led civil administration was not engaged in any dubious practices in marketing Iraq's oil and using the money to rebuild the shattered country.

No evidence Speicher was held

WASHINGTON — Investigations in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad have found no evidence that missing Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher was held in captivity after being shot down on the first night of the 1991 Gulf War, the Navy's top admiral said yesterday.
 
U.S. officials have been interrogating Iraqis and searching throughout the country for evidence of Speicher's fate. Despite having found no evidence that the Iraqis captured Speicher, the Navy is sticking to its position, declared publicly in October 2002, that Speicher is "missing-captured," said Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations.

Iraqi said Speicher died in the crash on Jan. 17, 1991, although his body was not recovered.

Other officials said yesterday that prewar assertions by informants that Speicher had been seen in a prison in Baghdad have been discredited.

U.N. inspectors say U.S. got in way

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. arms inspectors yesterday complained that a lack of cooperation by the United States had stymied their efforts to completely account for Iraqi weapons.

The latest quarterly report by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, says the U.S. never gave the commission a copy of U.S. inspector David Kay's findings on Iraqi weapons, and it failed to seek any U.N. information for Kay's team.

U.N. inspectors withdrew from Iraq a year ago, shortly before the U.S.-led invasion of the country. After the war, the United States deployed its own team under Kay and refused to allow in U.N. inspectors. Kay's team concluded that Iraq did not have stockpiles of banned weapons as alleged by President Bush in making his case for war.

Kay found it was unlikely Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons after 1994.

The U.N. group, seeking a permanent role in monitoring arms programs internationally, is hoping to complete its accounting of Iraqi arms as a model for future investigations.

Also ...

Three missiles hit a Baghdad neighborhood early today, Iraqi police said, damaging a telephone exchange and critically injuring one person.

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