Iraq Notebook
Militias near deal to disband

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Members of the two forces — the Shiite Muslim Badr Organization and the Kurdish peshmerga — will be offered a chance to work in Iraq's new security services or claim substantial retirement benefits as incentives to disarm and disband. The same offer will be presented to members of smaller militias.

Those who choose not to disband will be confronted and disarmed, by force if necessary, senior U.S. officials said.

Iraq says two civilians killed, 25 hurt in car-bomb attack

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A car bomb blew up near a U.S. Air Force base north of Baghdad today, killing two Iraqi civilians and wounding 25 others, an Iraqi Civil Defense Corps official said.

The explosion occurred outside the base near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, the official, Saeed Kadhim, said. U.S. officials could not confirm the attack.

Ex-Iraqi army officers reportedly training in U.S.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The United States is secretly training several senior former Iraqi army officers to advise Iraq's nascent postwar military establishment, a former Iraqi officer and a politician said yesterday.

U.S. Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said he had "no information" about such a training program. The politician, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said six major-generals and 11 other senior officers active in the Iraqi army until last year's U.S.-led invasion were being trained.

Soldiers, not prisoners, reported alleged misconduct

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Reports that led to charges against six U.S. soldiers accused of abusing detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison came from within the military, not from prisoner complaints, a senior U.S. military official said yesterday.
 
The soldiers, members of a military-police unit, were charged Saturday with a range of crimes, including conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault and indecent acts with another person. The military said about 20 detainees were involved.

CNN quoted Pentagon sources as saying that some soldiers took photos of prisoners who were partly nude, and some portrayed inappropriate physical contact between soldiers and detainees. Commanders here would neither confirm nor deny the report.

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