Iraq Notebook
Red Cross visits Saddam in jail

	GARY PORTER / AP The Witmer family, from left, Rachel, Charity, mother, Lori, center right, and Charity's twin Michelle, at their New Berlin, Wis., in December.
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Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt would not say where the visit took place. Saddam, who turns 67 today, has been held in an undisclosed location since his capture by U.S. forces in December, undergoing CIA and FBI interrogation.

The United States considers Saddam a prisoner of war and intends to hand him over to Iraqis for trial. An all-Iraqi tribunal has been created to carry out the trial.

The Red Cross is mandated to visit detainees under the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of warfare, but will not speak publicly on what conditions it finds.

Sisters won't return to Iraq after combat death of sibling

MADISON, Wis. — Torn between family and a call to duty, two Wisconsin soldiers whose sister was killed in Iraq have decided not to return to their combat units there.

Calling it "a profoundly difficult and complex decision," Rachel and Charity Witmer said yesterday that they had accepted the advice of Maj. Gen. Al Wilkening of the Wisconsin National Guard and would take new non-combat assignments outside Iraq.

The soldiers said they were swayed by Wilkening's request they remain stateside. He feared that if they went back, the increased attention on their units might put their fellow soldiers at risk.

Spc. Michelle Witmer, 20, was with the 32nd Military Police Company when she died April 9 in an ambush in Baghdad.

Portland, Port Orchard men die working as private security guards

A private security guard from Port Orchard, and one from Portland, died when the vehicle they were riding in was blown up by a roadside bomb in Iraq, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said yesterday.
 
Killed were Vincent Foster, 31, of Port Orchard, and Thomas Carter, 49, of Portland, said Army Corps spokeswoman Betsy Weiner of Huntsville, Ala. Both men were in the lead vehicle in a Sunday convoy of private security contractors. The security guards were escorting other contractors, a group of demolitions experts from Florida hired by the Corps to destroy old Iraqi munitions.

Foster was a Marine Corps veteran, Weiner said. Additional information on him was not available last night.

Carter, the father of a 10-year-old son, went to Iraq in December. He had served in the U.S. Army for nearly 18 years, receiving extensive training in security, particularly as part of the elite Delta Force.

Military boosts deliveries of armored vehicles to Iraq

WASHINGTON — Responding to a request by field commanders, military leaders are increasing the delivery of armored vehicles to Iraq because deadly roadside bombings have not diminished as expected.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday that a request for more heavy armored vehicles — Abrams M1A1 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles — has been made by commanders in Iraq. The Pentagon is considering sending more tanks and is accelerating production of armored Humvee utility vehicles.

Forces now arriving in Iraq as part of a massive troop rotation were ordered to leave many of their heavily armored tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles behind, in the belief that since their mission was peacekeeping instead of fighting, heavy equipment would be unnecessary.

But the violence targeting U.S. troops has escalated, not diminished. "The reason this is significant is because over the last several months they have been shipping all the armor in the theater out because of this persistent view that Humvees and mounted infantry is really all that's required," said one high-ranking Army officer in Washington In a March 30 memo, Gen. Larry Ellis, the head of the Army's Forces Command, told the Army chief of staff, "It is imperative that the Army accelerate the production of Stryker vehicles to support current operations."

A Fort Lewis-based unit is built around the Stryker, which can carry 11 troops and has half-inch armor plating. The Stryker was deployed late last year for the first time in Iraq, despite a Pentagon study that found it may be vulnerable to rocket-propelled grenade attacks.

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