Iraq Notebook
U.S. troops to be moved from palaces

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The move to leave the palaces is designed to counter the view that Saddam's government has been replaced by U.S. soldiers occupying the same opulent seats of power. The U.S.-led occupation is scheduled to hand over sovereignty to Iraqis at the end of June, and U.S.-led forces are trying to encourage the impression that Iraqis are increasingly governing and policing themselves.

Army Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of Iraq, outlined his plan in a congressional hearing after Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., asked whether U.S. troops would vacate the "symbols of evil" that leave them carrying "the baggage of the Hussein regime."

Abizaid said "turning over these important symbols of sovereignty will demonstrate to the Iraqi people that this is a partnership and not domination. The palaces don't belong to us. The airports don't belong to us. Nothing there belongs to us."

The palaces were chosen for use by U.S. military and civilian officials, largely because they provide shelter in secure, walled compounds with lots of space, in some cases with running water and electricity.

The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority is headquartered in what was Saddam's main palace in Baghdad, and Abizaid did not say whether it or other civilian elements of the occupation would move out. The United States is planning a large embassy in Baghdad. For troops pulling yearlong tours, the change is likely to make a difficult tour harsher. For thousands of soldiers, it likely means a transition from palace living to pup tents.

Saudi Muslim sects unite to condemn holy-day attacks

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Members of Saudi Arabia's Sunni majority joined fellow Shiite citizens yesterday in condemning the attacks on Shiite Muslims in Iraq as an attempt to divide Islam further.

It was a rare show of unity for this conservative kingdom, where Shiites are a minority seen as heretics by some clerics of the conservative Sunni sect of Wahhabism that dominates the country.

"This heinous crime, and all other violent attacks that preceded it ... aim to create sedition among Muslims and divide them, and consolidate the pretexts for the presence of occupation forces in Iraq," said the statement signed by Sunni reformists and Shiite public figures.

The attacks by suicide bombers and pre-set explosives struck on Ashoura, the holiest day of the Shiite calendar, when tens of thousands of people were gathered in Karbala and at Baghdad's Kazimiya shrine to mark the 7th century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson.
 
Shiites, who represent about 10 percent of the kingdom's 20 million people, have recently been outspoken about discrimination against them in official Saudi Arabia and among conservative clerics, who shun other religions and other Muslim sects.

Wahhabi clerics have often spoken out against Shiite rituals, the most prominent of which is Ashoura.

Rebuilt telephone exchange slammed by rockets; one dies

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Three rockets that were fired yesterday damaged a state-of-the-art Baghdad telephone exchange that had taken engineers for the U.S.-led occupation eight months and $50 million to install. The attack cut off international calling, killed one worker and wounded another.

An occupation spokesman said an explosion took place near a generator at the Mamoun Telephone Exchange, the largest in the capital, which serves 30,000 subscribers.

Bechtel, which worked on rebuilding the telephone exchange under a contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development, reopened the exchange by Dec. 13 and restored overseas telephone service by Dec. 30.

The attack was the latest blow to the sabotage-plagued reconstruction effort in Iraq.

Bombings have forced workers to repeatedly repair parts of the Iraq-Turkey oil pipeline, and looting of aluminum from the electricity-transmission lines has slowed distribution of power to parts of the country.

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