Iraq Notebook
Insurgencies alter troops' departure

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WASHINGTON — Struggling to quell the combined insurgencies of both Sunnis and Shiites, the Pentagon announced yesterday it will keep thousands of U.S. Army troops in Iraq for up to 90 days beyond their scheduled departure date.

Pentagon officials said they expected to begin notifying the families of up to 10,000 soldiers belonging to the Army's 1st Armored Division, normally based in Germany, that they would remain in Iraq for no more than 90 days. These troops, representing half the division, had been scheduled to leave Iraq by May.

Some of the troops were already in Kuwait, awaiting flights to Germany. Others were headed to Kuwait when they were ordered to turn around and redeploy to Baghdad and Najaf.

U.S. troops in Iraq number about 125,000, out of a coalition total of 145,000. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and top commanders had hoped to reduce that to about 105,000 by summer.

U.S. soldier will get a break on $6,000 cellphone bill

NATICK, Mass. — A homesick soldier in Iraq who racked up more than $6,000 on his cellphone bill will get a break on the tab — due in part to his father's efforts back home.

Army Reserve Sgt. Bryan Fletcher, 25, who has been in Iraq since May, had paid $3,911 for calls made in November and December, but T-Mobile suspended his service in January because he still owed $3,411. Then it hit him with a $200 early-termination fee.

Jim Fletcher told the MetroWest Daily News that he was seeking credit on behalf of his son, who is "just a soldier over there trying to find a way to call home while he's on an extended deployment."

On Thursday, a T-Mobile spokesman said the company would cover the remaining balance "as a result of Mr. Fletcher's special circumstance of active military service in the Middle East," spokesman Bryan Zidar said.

Angry protests in Mideast over U.S. attacks in Fallujah
 
CAIRO, Egypt — Across the Middle East, angry crowds yesterday day denounced the U.S.-led attacks in the Iraqi city of Fallujah and praised insurgents for resisting.

At Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque, one of Sunni Islam's oldest, some 500 men called President Bush "the enemy of God" and demanded Egypt expel the U.S. and Israeli ambassadors from Egypt.

In Lebanon's largest refugee camp, Ein el-Hilweh, about 2,000 Palestinians protested what they called "U.S. massacres" in Fallujah and called for U.S. troops to be slaughtered.

In Damascus, Syria, about 500 marchers waved Iraqi and Syrian flags. "Today is Iraq ... Tomorrow, who?" read one banner.

Security firms in Iraq tell clients to leave perilous areas

WASHINGTON — Several private security companies in Iraq this week warned their clients working on reconstruction projects to pull out of areas that have become too dangerous.

In one case, 40 British engineers canceled plans to fly to Baghdad this week. "Until things settle down, they won't be going in," said an official of AKE Limited, the British security firm that trained the workers.

A senior U.S. official in Iraq went so far as to warn Wednesday that two firms — including Kellogg Brown and Root, the biggest U.S. contractor in Iraq — were "considering withdrawing from the country."

Wendy Hall, spokeswoman for Houston-based Halliburton, KBR's parent company, denied the report. "Halliburton is resolved to move forward with the reconstruction effort," she said yesterday.

The safety of workers in Iraq, numbering in the tens of thousands, is important because they're providing essential services for the military, which include providing food and fuel, and security for civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer.

Soldier faces court-martial after sheik's truck is taken

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — A soldier accused of stealing a sheik's truck at gunpoint in Iraq will face a court-martial.

Sgt. 1st Class James Williams, with the Fort Campbell-based 101st Airborne Division's 326th Engineer Battalion, is charged with one count of robbery and one count of dereliction of duty.

Williams' attorney, Michael Love, said Williams only "commandeered" the vehicle in April 2003 in Mosul, Iraq, because the platoon's Humvee broke down.

Love has said the Army is using Williams as a political scapegoat after Sheik Ahmed W. Al-Faisal was paid $32,000 in cash by the U.S. government for the loss of the SUV.

Williams did what he thought was right at the time because the vehicle was to be used for military purposes, Love said.

Also ...

An aide to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr denied yesterday that the movement's al-Mahdi Army militia was behind the kidnapping of three Japanese in southern Iraq. "We condemn such acts and we pray for their release," said Amer al-Husseini, the cleric's representative in the Sadr City district of Baghdad. ... Americans' support for President Bush's policies in Iraq fell 7 percentage points to 44 percent over the past 11 days, according to a CNN/Time magazine poll. The survey, released yesterday, had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

... British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said yesterday that "The lid of the pressure cooker has come off" in Iraq. He blamed much of the violence on "tensions and pressures" that built up under Saddam Hussein's rule. ... The United States has asked France to contribute to an international protection force for U.N. employees in Iraq, but France, which led opposition to the Iraq war, said yesterday that it is too early to respond.

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