Al-Qaida video: U.S. decision to cut troops is victory for Islam

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Al-Qaida's second-in-command said President Bush had admitted defeat in Iraq by announcing plans to reduce the American troop presence in the country, saying the move would be a victory for Islam.

Ayman al-Zawahri's videotaped remarks, broadcast on Al-Jazeera television Friday, came after two days of suicide bombings in Iraq killed almost 200 people. Al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq is widely believed to have been behind the deadliest of the attacks.

"Bush, you must admit that you have been defeated in Iraq and that you are being defeated in Afghanistan and that you will soon be defeated in Palestine," al-Zawahri said, according to a translation of his statement by the Washington-based SITE Institute.

Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian who is al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, warned Americans that "as long as you do not deal with Muslim nations with understanding and respect, you will still go from one disaster to another. And your calamity will not end, unless you leave our lands and stop stealing our resources and stop supporting the bad rulers in our countries."

News services quoted U.S. officials as saying the tape was probably authentic.

Murtha says military to blame for slump

WASHINGTON — Rep. John Murtha says the military is blaming him for a recruitment slump instead of recognizing mistakes that have led to an enlistment shortage.

"They're trying to direct attention away from their problems," said Murtha, D-Pa., a decorated Marine Corps veteran who has become a leading voice in Congress advocating an early withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that Murtha's remarks about Iraq are damaging to troop morale and to the Army's efforts to bring up recruitment numbers. Pace, the nation's top general, was asked specifically about an ABC News interview this week in which Murtha, 73, said if he were eligible to join the military today he would not join, nor would he expect others to join.

In a statement released Thursday, Murtha said: "The military had no problem recruiting directly after 9/11 because everyone understood that we had been attacked. But now the military's ability to attract recruits is being hampered by the prospect of prolonged, extended and repeated deployments, inadequate equipment, shortened home stays, the lack of any connection between Iraq and the brutal attacks of 9/11, and — most importantly — the administration's constantly changing, undefined, open-ended military mission in Iraq."

U.S. failed to anticipate insurgency, Bremer says

WASHINGTON — Paul Bremer, who led the U.S. civilian occupation authority in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, has admitted the United States did not anticipate the insurgency in the country, NBC Television said on Friday.

Bremer, interviewed by the network in connection with release of his book on Iraq, recounted the decision to disband the Iraqi army quickly after arriving in Baghdad, a move many experts consider a major miscalculation.

When asked who was to blame for the subsequent Iraqi rebellion, in which thousands of Iraqis and Americans have died, Bremer said, "we really didn't see the insurgency coming," the network said in a news release.

South Korean arrested in oil-for-food scandal

NEW YORK — A South Korean businessman accused of accepting millions of dollars from Iraq in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal was arrested Friday by the FBI in Houston, authorities announced.

The arrest of Tongsun Park came as new charges against him were unsealed in federal court in Manhattan, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia.

Park had been charged in April with accepting millions of dollars from the Iraqi government while he operated in the United States as an unregistered agent for Iraq's effort to create the oil-for-food program.

The new charges accuse Park of agreeing in October 1992 to work on behalf of the Iraqi government with another person who is now a cooperating witness for the U.S. government.

Park received at least $2 million from the Iraqi government for his efforts.

Pentagon: Better armor would have helped

WASHINGTON — An unreleased Pentagon study of fatal torso wounds to Marines killed in Iraq found that most might have been prevented or minimized if they had been wearing improved body armor.

The study last summer by the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner looked at 93 fatal wounds from the start of the war in March 2003 through June 2005 and concluded that 74 of them were bullet or shrapnel wounds to shoulders or areas of the torso not protected by ceramic armor plating.

The findings underscore the difficulty facing the Army and Marine Corps in providing the optimum level of body-armor protection in a war against an insurgency whose tactics are constantly changing. Both the Army and the Marine Corps have weighed the expected payoff in additional safety from extra armor against the measurable loss of combat effectiveness from too much armor.

"In response to the changing battlefield conditions and as new technologies emerge, the Army continues to develop improvements to soldier-protection equipment to enhance survivability and mobility," said Army spokesman Paul Boyce.

Boyce said he could not discuss details but said U.S. soldiers' body armor is the best in the world.

A military advocacy group, Soldiers for Truth, posted an article about the study on its Web site this week.

Compiled from The Washington Post, The Associated Press and Reuters