A security cordon has been established to ensure the safety of troops that check not only Mt. Cudi, but other passages and routes for safety.

There is also top-level security present en route to the Border Gate Habur-2.

In another development, Kurdish militias (Peshmergas) under the leadership of Massoud Barzani tightened security measures along the Northern Iraqi border.

On Thursday, a statement from Barzani called attention to a plea for cessation of external intervention in Iraq's domestic affairs. The need for agreement between officials from both Turkey and North Iraq was stressed.

Mehmet Gunes, a truck driver, said something interesting while on routine transit through the Border Gate Habur. "We are well accustomed to seeing such things. It's the media that magnifies what we consider normal, I think." Gunes also said that the truck drivers are not having any problem transiting border gates for the moment.

There is not any unusual military activity going on here against North Iraq, said Gunes, and some residents here are still unaware of the recent developments.

The Operation Crescent, a cross-border operation, is remarkable for one other thing: the exclusion of village guards from the operation.

One quintessential example of "destroying to save" is Fallujah. The US tried either to round up or kill the able-bodied men in Fallujah by bombing everyone out of the town, and then driving the men back into it so they could be bombed some more. We leveled Fallujah in 2004 and remain intent on rearranging the rubble.

Destroying Our Environment (And Future Economy) To Save It:

The Administration claims to be saving the environment while keeping our economy strong. But current policies will do neither. The Administration refuses to acknowledge the destruction of our environment, and proceeds gleefully with policies that will hasten the process. Using Global Warming as an example, it has not restricted carbon dioxide but put in limited voluntary measures that have done little, not supported the relevant Kyoto Protocols, disputed alarming research or called for further years of study when action was needed, and ousted or gagged scientists with opposing views. Figures released in mid-April place 2004 greenhouse gasses at their highest level ever recorded, with the U.S. being the principle culprit.

Thus we see Polar ice caps melting and glaciers receding. Alaskans are now concerned about forest fires. Greenland is no longer covered solidly in ice. Warming oceans are destroying marine ecosystems. Rising sea levels are forcing remote villagers to move to higher ground (if any exists).

Rising sea levels will destroy our climate, coastlines and economy. If remote villagers need to move, so will wealthy seaside resort residents in the U.S. What will our economy look like when our major cities, most along our coasts, are under water? We will see ever increasing post-disaster mass relocations like those following Hurricane Katrina.

We citizens share the blame, though, as these policies are partly driven by our daily decisions. Each of us drives the demand for oil that leads to a degraded ecosystem and a foreign policy that leads to seeking foreign oil control.

Readers willing to look honestly at events will find their own examples of our government destroying things in the name of saving them. If the current administration's philosophy carries into the future, expect the destruction of our social security and Medicare systems-for starters-allegedly to save them of course. Perhaps our only hope is that the Bush Administration will continue to stretch destructiveness to such an extent that even its supporters will begin to object.

The Neo-Con's vision of a "New American Century" has dragged us instead into an Anti-American Century in which our children will pay dearly for our mistakes. Destroying our country and others is not a form of salvation, but of mass suicide.

Daniel Jordan, Ph.D.; Research consultant and Dean, College of Social and Political Justice, International University for Graduate Studies, St. Kitts & Nevis, BWI; drdanj@adelphia.net

Neil Wollman; Ph.D.; Senior Fellow, Peace Studies Institute, Professor of Psychology; Manchester College, North Manchester, IN 46962; njwollman@manchester.edu;

These documents offer unprecedented insight into the tense deliberations in the White House in 1969 -- a crucial time in which international ratification of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was uncertain and U.S. policymakers feared that a Middle Eastern conflagration could lead to superpower conflict. Nearly four decades later, as the world struggles with nuclear ambitions in Iran, India and elsewhere, the ramifications of this hidden history are still felt.

Israel's nuclear program began more than 10 years before Helms's envelope landed on Nixon's desk. In 1958, Israel secretly initiated work at what was to become the Dimona nuclear research site. Only about 15 years after the Holocaust, nuclear nonproliferation norms did not yet exist, and Israel's founders believed they had a compelling case for acquiring nuclear weapons. In 1961, the CIA estimated that Israel could produce nuclear weapons within the decade.

The discovery presented a difficult challenge for U.S. policymakers. From their perspective, Israel was a small, friendly state -- albeit one outside the boundaries of U.S. security guarantees -- surrounded by larger enemies vowing to destroy it. Yet government officials also saw the Israeli nuclear program as a potential threat to U.S. interests. President John F. Kennedy feared that without decisive international action to curb nuclear proliferation, a world of 20 to 30 nuclear-armed nations would be inevitable within a decade or two.

The Kennedy and Johnson administrations fashioned a complex scheme of annual visits to Dimona to ensure that Israel would not develop nuclear weapons. But the Israelis were adept at concealing their activities. By late 1966, Israel had reached the nuclear threshold, although it decided not to conduct an atomic test.

By the time Prime Minister Levi Eshkol visited President Lyndon B. Johnson in January 1968, the official State Department view was that despite Israel's growing nuclear weapons potential, it had "not embarked on a program to produce a nuclear weapon." That assessment, however, eroded in the months ahead. By the fall, Assistant Defense Secretary Paul C. Warnke concluded that Israel had already acquired the bomb when Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin explained to him how he interpreted Israel's pledge not to be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the region. According to Rabin, for nuclear weapons to be introduced, they needed to be tested and publicly declared. Implicitly, then, Israel could possess the bomb without "introducing" it.

The question of what to do about the Israeli bomb would fall to Nixon. Unlike his Democratic predecessors, he and his national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, were initially skeptical about the effectiveness of the NPT. And though they may have been inclined to accommodate Israel's nuclear ambitions, they would have to manage senior State Department and Pentagon officials whose perspectives differed. Documents prepared between February and April 1969 reveal a great sense of urgency and alarm among senior officials about Israel's nuclear progress.

As Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird wrote in March 1969, these "developments were not in the United States' interests and should, if at all possible, be stopped." Above all, the Nixon administration was concerned that Israel would publicly display its nuclear capabilities.

Apparently prompted by those high-level concerns, Kissinger issued NSSM 40 -- titled Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program -- on April 11, 1969. In it he asked the national security bureaucracy for a review of policy options toward Israel's nuclear program. In the weeks that followed, the issue was taken up by a senior review group (SRG), chaired by Kissinger, that included Helms, Undersecretary of State Elliot Richardson, Deputy Defense Secretary David Packard and Joint Chiefs Chairman Earle Wheeler.

The one available report of an SRG meeting on NSSM 40 suggests that the bureaucracy was interested in pressuring Israel to halt its nuclear program. How much pressure to exert remained open. Kissinger wanted to "avoid direct confrontation," while Richardson was willing to apply pressure if an investigation to determine Israel's intentions showed that some key assurances would not be forthcoming. In such circumstances, the United States could tell the Israelis that scheduled deliveries of F-4 Phantom jets to Israel would have to be reconsidered.

By mid-July 1969, Nixon had let it be known that he was leery of using the Phantoms as leverage, so when Richardson and Packard summoned Rabin on July 29 to discuss the nuclear issue, the idea of a probe that involved pressure had been torpedoed. Although Richardson and Packard emphasized the seriousness with which they viewed the nuclear problem, they had no threat to back up their rhetoric.

Richardson posed three issues for Rabin to respond to: the status of Israel's NPT deliberations; assurances that "non-introduction" meant "non-possession" of nuclear weapons; and assurances that Israel would not produce or deploy the Jericho ballistic missile. Rabin, however, was unresponsive except to say that the NPT was still "under study."

Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir would have to address the nuclear issue when they met in late September.

Perhaps the most fateful event of this tale was Nixon's one-on-one meeting with Meir in the Oval Office on Sept. 26, 1969.

In the days before Meir's visit, the State Department produced background papers suggesting that the horse was already out of the barn: "Israel might very well now have a nuclear bomb" and certainly "already had the technical ability and material resources to produce weapon-grade material for a number of weapons." If that was true, it meant that events had overtaken the NSSM 40 exercise.

In later years, Meir never discussed the substance of her private conversation with Nixon, saying only, "I could not quote him then, and I will not quote him now." Yet, according to declassified Israeli documents, since the early 1960s, Meir had been convinced that "Israel should tell the United States the truth [about the nuclear issue] and explain why."

Even without the record of this meeting, informed speculation is possible. It is likely that Nixon started with a plea for openness. Meir, in turn, probably acknowledged -- tacitly or explicitly -- that Israel had reached a weapons capability, but probably pledged extreme caution. (Years later, Nixon told CNN's Larry King that he knew for certain that Israel had the bomb, but he wouldn't reveal his source.) Meir may have assured Nixon that Israel thought of nuclear weapons as a last-resort option, a way to provide her Holocaust-haunted nation with a psychological sense of existential deterrence.

Subsequent memorandums from Kissinger to Nixon provide a limited sense of what the national security adviser understood happened at the meeting. Kissinger noted that the president had emphasized to Meir that "our primary concern was that the Israeli [government] make no visible introduction of nuclear weapons or undertake a nuclear test program." Thus, Israel would be committed to conducting its nuclear affairs cautiously and secretly; their status would remain uncertain and unannounced.

On Feb. 23, 1970, Rabin told Kissinger privately that he wanted the president to know that, in light of the Meir-Nixon conversation, "Israel has no intention to sign the NPT." Rabin, Kissinger wrote, "wanted also to make sure there was no misapprehension at the White House about Israel's current intentions."

Kissinger informed Nixon that he told Rabin that he would notify the president. And with that, the decade-long U.S. effort to curb Israel's nuclear program ended. That enterprise was replaced by understandings negotiated at the highest level, between the respective heads of state, that have governed Israel's nuclear conduct ever since.

That so little is known today about the tale of NSSM 40 is not surprising. Dealing with Israel's nuclear ambitions was thornier for the Nixon administration than for its predecessors because it was forced to deal with the problem at the critical time when Israel appeared to be crossing the nuclear threshold.

Yet, even as Nixon and Kissinger enabled Israel to flout the NPT, NSSM 40 allowed them to create a defensible record. As was his typical modus operandi, Kissinger used NSSM 40 to maintain control over key officials who wanted to take action on the problem.

Politically, the Nixon-Meir agreement allowed both leaders to continue with their old public policies without being forced to openly acknowledge the new reality. As long as Israel kept the bomb invisible -- no test, declaration, or any other act displaying nuclear capability -- the United States could live with it.

Over time, the tentative Nixon-Meir understanding became the foundation for a remarkable U.S.-Israeli deal, accompanied by a tacit but strict code of behavior to which both nations closely adhered. Even during its darkest hours in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel was cautious not to make any public display of its nuclear capability.

Yet set against contemporary values of transparency and accountability, the Nixon-Meir deal of 1969 now stands as a striking and burdensome anomaly. Israel's nuclear posture is inconsistent with the tenets of a modern liberal democracy. The deal is also burdensome for the United States, provoking claims about double standards in U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy.

It is especially striking to compare the Nixon administration's stance toward Israel in 1969 with the way Washington is trying to accommodate India in 2006. As problematic as the proposed nuclear pact with New Delhi is, it at least represents an effort to deal openly with the issue.

Unlike the case of Iran today -- where a nation is publicly violating its NPT obligations and where the United States and the international community are acting in the open -- the White House in 1969 addressed the Israeli weapons program in a highly secretive fashion. That kind of deal-making would be impossible now.

Without open acknowledgment of Israel's nuclear status, such ideas as a nuclear-free Middle East, or even the inclusion of Israel in an updated NPT regime, cannot be discussed properly. It is time for a new deal to replace the Nixon-Meir understandings of 1969, with Israel telling the truth and finally normalizing its nuclear affairs.

Avner Cohen is a senior research fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland and author of "Israel and the Bomb" (Columbia University Press). William Burr is a senior analyst at the National Security Archive at George Washington University. A longer version of this article appears in the May/June issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

But the two sides, meeting at the State Department, also vowed to work together to counter "new and emerging threats" in the world, including Tehran's suspected efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

"They committed to work closely on efforts to convince Iran to suspend all enrichment-related activities and cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency's investigation, and agreed on the need for concerted United Nations Security Council action," the statement said.

It was issued as the United States was pressing for UN sanctions against Iran but running into resistance from Russia and China, which both hold a veto on the 15-member Security Council.

The Japanese and US delegations renewed their appeal to Pyongyang to return to six-nation negotiations on its nuclear arms program that have bogged down since a declaration of principles was adopted last September.

Their statement "urged North Korea to return expeditiously to the talks without preconditions, to dismantle its nuclear programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner, and to cease all illicit and proliferation activities."

Aso also reiterated that for Tokyo it was "indispensable" to resolve the problem of North Korea's abductions of Japanese civilians in the 1970s and early 1980s for conversion into spies.

China's growing military might was clearly on the minds of the world's superpower and its chief Asian ally, which called for "greater transparency on the modernization of military capabilities in the region."

The joint statement did not mention Beijing by name, but Nukaga was more direct in his own remarks. "Concerning China, along with the economic growth, we see the increase in their defense budget," he said.

"It is very important to work with them so that they will increase the transparency of military capabilities of China to ensure a sense of security among the neighbors," Nukaga said. "And I made this point during the meeting."

The ministers also adopted a roadmap for restructuring American military presence in Japan, which they said "will lead to a new phase in alliance cooperation and strengthened alliance capabilities" in the Asia-Pacific region.

The roadmap would set the pace for the relocation of a key US air base as well as troops from the southern Japanese island of Okinawa by 2014.

Japan is the top US ally in Asia and the two sides have since 2002 been negotiating details of the realignment, including giving Japan's military greater responsibility for security in the region.

The package, originally due to be finalised by the end of March, has been delayed by a dispute over sharing the cost of moving 8,000 US Marines from Okinawa to the US Pacific island of Guam.

Tokyo finally agreed to shoulder 59 percent of the 10.27 billion dollars for the relocation of the Marines and their 9,000 family members. Washington had initially demanded it pay 75 percent of the tab, which includes construction of housing.

The US troop changes are part of a sweeping reorganisation of US forces throughout East Asia. US military presence in Japan and on Okinawa began at the end of World War II.

The two countries recently resolved another sticking point by agreeing to move a sprawling US Marine Corps air base from an urban area in Okinawa to a beach on the island.

There are currently more than 40,000 US troops in Japan, more than half of them in the Okinawa chain where islanders have long demanded a reduction in the US presence.

Erekat made the statements upon arrival in the West Bank city of Ramallah after accompanying Abbas on a tour with the aim to secure aid and persuade European donors to continue financial support.

"The question of continuing aid or cutting it off is political,rather than technical," Erekat added, urging donors to resume aid as soon as possible.

In addition, the senior Palestinian official also called upon the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), which took the reins of the Palestinian government in late March, to honor related international resolutions and abide by previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements in order to avoid international isolation.

The United States and the European Union have cut off direct aid to the Hamas government since Hamas refuses to renounce violence, recognize Israel's right to exist and honor previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements.

Israel has also halted the monthly transfer of about 50 million U.S. dollars of tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians since Hamas' sweeping victory in the January Palestinian legislative polls.

The aid cut has led to a grave financial crisis to the Hamas government and the daily life of ordinary Palestinians, who have been largely dependent on aid.

The Hamas administration is being boycotted by Western powers because of the militant group's opposition to peace with Israel and its support for violence.

"We are currently considering various options to deliver aid effectively to the Palestinian people, because we realize the complexity of the present situation," El Naggar said.

"The Chirac proposal is one of the options. It is certainly not the only option we are looking at at this point," she added.

A long-standing financial crisis in the Palestinian Authority has hit disaster level since Hamas took office last month, with Israel withholding customs duties and the European Union and United States suspending direct aid.

The Hamas administration has been unable to pay any salaries since March. Given the heavy burden of 'state' machinery in the Palestinian territories, that affects the livelihoods of one million people or a quarter of the population.

The Hamas government said Friday it had no problem in principle with the Chirac proposal, but warned it would not be frozen out of paying its employees.

Bush's overly-optimistic assessment that "major combat operations" were over in Iraq and the now-infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner have been the subject of much criticism ever since, with thousands of US forces and Iraqi civilians killed in escalating violence over the past three years.

The Pentagon said that as of last Friday, 2,401 US forces were killed in Iraq, including 1,886 since Bush's aircraft carrier speech.

Bush put the event behind him Monday, declaring that after months of sectarian strife, Iraq had turned a corner after selection of a unity government.

"(We) are going to work with the new leadership to strengthen our mutual efforts to achieve success, a victory in this war on terror," he said in brief remarks delivered on the White House lawn Monday.

But opposition Democrats, who long have considered the "Mission Accomplished" incident among the administration's most embarrassing gaffes, could not resist needling Bush about the administration's missteps in Iraq.

"In honor of today's 'Mission Accomplished' anniversary, allow me to remind the president of some of his 'accomplishments' in Iraq," US Representative Rahm Emanuel, a Democratic leader in the US House, wrote in a press release.

Emanuel enumerated a long list of administration mistakes, including predictions "that the Iraq conflict would take no more than five months" and "that our troops would be greeted as liberators."

Other members of the opposition party piled on, with top Senate Democrat Harry Reid calling Monday "a sad anniversary of a sorry public relations stunt."

Democratic US Senator Ted Kennedy used the milestone to slam the administration, while honoring the US war dead and their survivors.

"For them, their families and loved ones, the mission is far from accomplished," Kennedy said from the floor of the US Senate.

Bush however said Monday that while some "tough days" are ahead, the worst is likely over.

"We believe this is a turning point for the Iraqi citizens, and it's a new chapter in our partnership," said Bush, flanked by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, fresh from their surprise visit last week to Iraq.

The president had praise for Iraq's prime minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki, who has been under pressure from a power-sharing government to curb sectarian violence.

"This new government is going to represent a new start for the Iraqi people. It's a government that understands they've got serious challenges ahead of them," Bush said, describing the new Iraqi leadership as "optimistic people."

"They're full of energy and they're very eager to succeed," he said.

Bush reiterated his view that not just the Iraqis but the United States stands to benefit from a stable, self-sufficient Iraq.

"A new Iraqi government represents a strategic opportunity for America, and the whole world, for that matter. This nation of ours and our coalition partners are going to work with the new leadership to strengthen our mutual efforts to achieve success, a victory in this war on terror," he said.

Rumsfeld, Rice and the new Iraqi leadership covered numerous topics in their meetings last week, including "the need to establish control over the militias and other unauthorized armed groups and enforce the rule of law," Bush said.

"We will support them in these efforts to achieve that important objective," said Bush, who said discussions also addressed "the need to rebuild infrastructure and strengthen their economy."

A Pentagon report published Monday said the reconstruction of Iraq had made "significant progress" in recent months despite "shortfalls and deficiencies."

Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said in a quarterly report that oil production remained below pre-war levels and that "Iraqis are not yet fully benefiting from their nation's enormous oil supply."

The report also says 67 percent of the 21 billion dollars for reconstruction had been spent, and only two billion dollars more need to be allocated.

"Although the story of Iraq reconstruction has been punctuated by shortfalls and deficiencies, the infrastructure overview ... presents a picture of significant progress achieved through a substantial US investment of time, talent, and tax dollars in Iraq's relief and reconstruction," the report said.

This is the faith based fable of what happened almost exactly three years ago. The reality based scenario goes something like this:

- Over 2400 American soldiers (including my son who was killed almost a year after Mission Accomplished Day) have come home in cardboard boxes in cargo areas of planes in the secrecy of the night.

- Thousands of our young people wounded, many grievously also bused into Walter Reed and other hospitals in the dark of the night.

- Tons of rubble upon rubble in Iraq with inconsistent electrical power still and not much clean water or chance of future power and clean water.

- Hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians are dead, being punished for the sins of a leader who was propped up, armed and supported by many US Regimes.

The Mission Accomplished Day (or, Operation Codpiece) public relations' dream for the presidential pelvic zone has turned into a frighteningly real nightmare for so many people around the world who have had sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and oftentimes entire families wiped out and devastated by the strutting and smirking terrorist who was feeling mighty "chipper" last night at the Washington Correspondent's annual dinner as the 2400 th soldier was being killed and as the 2400th Gold Star Mother was falling on the floor screaming for her child. There are hundreds of thousands of people on our planet who will have a hard time ever feeling chipper again because of George Bush, no matter how good he looks in a flight suit.

Now that BushCo has done such a fantastic job with the invasion and occupation of Iraq that never should have happened, but now that it has happened is extraordinarily evil in its scope and tactics, he is warning Iran that if it doesn't shape up the US is going to come and impose freedom and democracy on that country. The rah-rah, "yes, sir" Congress who has an easy job of approving everything that George Bush does, thereby eliminating critical thinking, debate, or any semblance of rational discussion has voted for sanctions that will lead to an attack on Iran which will be devastating for our troops in Iraq and for that poor region that had the unfortunate luck to be built upon tremendous oil and natural gas reserves.

Only 21 Congress people voted "nay" on the Iran Freedom Support Act which is incredible considering what happened when they voted "yea" to give George Bush the green light for every sanction against Iraq and to invade it. I ran into one of the "yea" voters on the Iran Freedom Support Act, Rep. Major Owens, and I asked him why he voted that way. He said it was because he hated the "evil" regime of Iran. I asked him about our own evil, irresponsible regime! The radical President of Iran says very irresponsible and inflammatory things, but by all accounts is over a decade away from a nuclear weapon and is reigned in by the mullahs and the young population of Iran that is very westernized. We are in trouble with our one party system of government, which is the War Party.

Before we the people need to be subjected to another swaggering spectacle from George after he has bombed Iran back into the stone ages and has made we the people of the United States of America even more hated around the world, it is time to rein him in ourselves. Congress won't do it and the media is falling into lockstep behind the murder again.

It is time to fire the warniks whose bloodlust cannot be slated and hire people who will finally use their wisdom, integrity, and non-violence to solve problems, and won't create imaginary problems out of smoke and mirrors. We need a Congress that will hold George accountable not one that is complicit in the war crimes.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "We must live together as brothers, or perish together as fools." God protect us from the fools that we elected to protect us!

Babil's date palm plantations, flat alluvial landscape and almost infinitely divided lattice of irrigation canals give the place a timeless and emblematic feeling. It was home to Babylon - and the Tower of Babel. Thus it was here that Iraq gave the world the "confusion of languages": what should be the blessing of diversity, now cast as the curse of identity politics.

If everything goes to pieces in Iraq, we will not hear much more about Babil. In that case it will be Anbar, Basra, Kirkuk, Sadr City and the Green Zone in Baghdad that will symbolize pessimism and disaster. But if things go well, or at least better - if Iraq still exists five years from now, and continues to be more free than all of its neighbors except Turkey and less of a threat to them than it used to be - then Babil will have been a major reason for the success.

Comment: If Iraq still exists five years from now, then things will have gone "better"???? From "liberating" then country and imposing Western-style democracy, to the shouts and cheers of the Iraqi people, we are not looking at a hopefull scenario of Iraq still existing in five years???

What Iraqis care about above all else these days is security, and Babil - apart from the so-called Death Triangle around the towns of Latifiya, Mahmudiya and Yusufiya in the Sunni north - is a safe place. In the December national elections, voter turnout in Babil was nearly 70 percent without a single serious incident of violence.

During the Shiite festival of Ashura this year, marked by 10 days of pilgrimage to Najaf and Karbala, some half a million pilgrims walked and drove through the province without reports of a single insurgent attack. Of the 81 civil reconstruction projects undertaken in Babil outside the Death Triangle in the last year - most related to water and electricity - not one has been attacked by Sunni insurgents or Shiite militias, according to the executive officer of the American troops here, the First Squadron of the 10th Cavalry. He told me that his troops had experienced only eight cases of hostile contact, and not a single casualty, since arriving in December. (They are vacating the base now and will not be replaced.)

Order here is not of the same magnitude as that in the Kurdish north, where 15 years of freedom have allowed the development of a highly efficient police state. Nor is it the false quiet of the south, where the allied forces' ceding of the streets to Shiites militias has masked a situation in which Basra is more frightening to liberal Iraqis and to foreigners than is Baghdad. Order in Babil is real order, not gangster order.



What really makes Babil special is that it is a largely Shiite province in which the Shiite militias - the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades - have almost no foothold. But they are trying. All Iraq's police answer to the Interior Ministry, which is held by the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the main Iranian organ in the country. And the interior minister, Bayan Jabr, has repeatedly tried to replace Babil's independent-minded provincial police chief, Gen. Qais Hamza al-Maamony. Under heavy pressure from the Americans, however, the minister agreed in January to a moratorium on the replacement of senior police officers until after the formation of the new government.



Nonetheless, according to American officials in the province, General Maamony was recently forced to accept 700 candidates recommended by the ministry - that is, by the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution - for the incoming class of the provincial police academy. The police chief, I'm told, plans to spread these recruits as thinly as possible around the province upon their graduation to lessen their impact on the force.

General Maamony and his 8,000 men - especially the provincial SWAT teams, which supply the muscle that the relatively poorly trained and lightly armed regular police often cannot or will not provide - are understandably unpopular with the council and its military wing, the Badr Brigades. And they are equally feared by the Mahdi Army of the rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. A member of one local SWAT team often wears a baseball hat with "Mahdi Militia Killer" inscribed on it.

One Iraqi-American living here told me that he saw an operation in which the SWAT team drove up to a Mahdi checkpoint in civilian cars and clothes one night last year and killed 38 of the militiamen. While this number may be an exaggeration, unquestionably the local police forces are taking on the militias.

Of course, the Shiite militias are not the only danger. Up in the Sunni north, the province's police commandos mount 40-man daylight patrols in support of the overwhelmed local police officers, bouncing down rural byways, swerving around holes in the main roads created by homemade bombs, pointing out to me the places where in recent weeks they have fought in gun battles that often lasted several hours.

AT night they conduct more focused missions, often in the company of American Special Forces operatives, to apprehend suspected insurgents. One Special Forces commander told me he had worked with local policemen in just about every hot spot around the world since 1980, and that the Iraqi commandos in Babil are "the best any of us have ever seen."

They are also worried, as are their colleagues among the regular police. When the current moratorium on firing nonpartisan police officials expires with the formation of the new government (Mr. Maliki has about three weeks to finish that task), a momentous drama will break out inside the Interior Ministry in Baghdad. If the ministry stays in the hands of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution, then the people of Babil might find their streets and markets patrolled by men with greater allegiance to the council than to the legitimate Iraqi government and the country's best interests.



Should this happen, the assault commander of the provincial police commandos told me, he and his men might have to retire together to a rural compound where they would be out of jobs and out of uniform, but they could try to keep one another safe.

Can the new government prevent this success story at the heart of Arab Iraq from becoming yet another stronghold of theocrats, thugs and meddling neighbors? Handicapping Iraqi politics is a fool's game, of course, but if anyone can, it might well be Mr. Maliki. While he spent some years of his exile in Iran, he was the leader of the pro-Arab, rather than the pro-Iranian, wing of his party, Dawa. He has a strongly Shiite identity, yet his acceptance in his new post by Kurdish and Sunni politicians has been on surprisingly warm terms.

Undoubtedly, Mr. Maliki is less of an Iranian stooge and a far more forceful character than his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari. He also has solid anti-insurgent credentials. As chairman of the Parliament's national security committee, he was the architect of the popular new law that, among other things, attacks the economic basis of domestic insurgent support by going after the property and wealth of those convicted of abetting terrorists.

The key for the incoming government will be to apply this law vigorously in the knowledge that nonsectarian and nonpartisan control of local security forces is the key to domestic order and, ultimately, reconstruction.

Babil shows that such a thing is possible. But if this province is to continue to provide an island of relative order in the heart of Arab Iraq, people like General Maamony need to keep their jobs. For now, in the blast-walled compounds of the Hilla police forces and commandos, the real sense of siege is not from the insurgents and militias they fight almost every day, but from the politicians in Baghdad.

The American casualty occurred Monday night about 40 miles south of Baghdad in the Sunni-dominated "Triangle of Death," a farming region rife with sectarian violence and the scene of numerous ambushes against U.S. and Iraqi troops.

The bombing raised to at least 2,406 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

In Tuesday's violence, a roadside bomb missed a U.S. convoy in Waziriyah, northern Baghdad, but killed an Iraqi pedestrian, said police Cap. Ali al-Obeidi. A roadside bomb also missed an Iraqi police patrol, killing one civilian and wounding another in western Baghdad, said police 1st Lt. Maithem Abdel-Razaq.

Police also found the bodies of four Iraqi men on the streets of Kazimiyah, a Shiite neighborhood in northern Baghdad, police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said. The legs and hands of the men were bound with rope, and each had been shot in the head and chest before being dumped on a street, he said.

On Monday, at least 15 bullet-riddled bodies were found in the capital, Iraq's Interior Ministry said. The victims were men aged 20-40 years; all were handcuffed and blindfolded.

U.S. officials hope the new Iraqi government, expected to be finalized this month, will be able to calm sectarian tensions and lure many minority Sunni Arabs away from the insurgency so U.S. and other international troops can begin heading home.

President Jalal Talabani was quoted by his office as saying Sunday that he had met with representatives of seven armed groups and was optimistic they would agree to lay down their arms. However, an official in Talabani's office said Monday the president did not meet with the groups and that his security adviser, Lt. Gen. Wafiq al-Sammaraie, made the contacts.

Another Kurdish politician, Mahmoud Othman, also said Talabani had not met with any insurgent representatives but that al-Sammaraie was in contact with undisclosed groups not linked to Saddam Hussein loyalists or al-Qaida in Iraq.

In Washington, President Bush said Monday he was convinced Iraq's leadership is "more determined that ever to succeed" with formation of a new permanent government.

"We believe we've got partners to help the Iraqi people realize their dreams," Bush said after meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who visited Baghdad last week. "They need to know that we stand with them."

Also Monday, the director general of Japan's Defense Agency, Fukushiro Nukaga, told the United States that Japan would withdraw its 600 non-combat troops deployed in southern Iraq at the same time that British and Australian troops are pulled out, the Kyodo News agency reported Tuesday.

The Japanese government has said in the past that it would consult with Britain and Australia before making any decisions to withdraw troops from Iraq and would take into consideration the political and security situation there.

A Japanese Defense Ministry spokeswoman told The Associated Press that the policy had not changed. She spoke on condition of anonymity according to department policy.

Australia, which has a total 1,320 troops in and around Iraq, has said it will keep forces in the country until they are no longer needed. Britain, which has the second largest foreign force in Iraq after the United States, announced in March cuts of about 10 percent in its force of 8,000.

Far from aping the competition, Al Jazeera executives say they are setting out to be unashamedly different.

"We are launching at a time when the freedom of the broadcast media has never been under more pressure," says head of news Steve Clark, who spent 17 years at British commercial broadcaster ITV and two years at Middle Eastern broadcaster MBC before joining the Doha, Qatar based broadcaster.

"I look at the U.S. and get dismayed by the lack of critical analysis of the Bush administration. Our job is to report impartially and without any agenda."

Al Jazeera International will share resources and facilities with its Arabic sister channel and the two broadcasters will work together on relevant stories, says Clark.

The news channel, which is mostly targeting the 2 billion or so non-Arabic speaking Muslims around the world, will offer a different perspective, says managing director Nigel Parsons, a former director of Associated Press Television News.

"We'll report the same news, but we might report it differently," he says. "If we were reporting the war in Iraq we would call it an illegal invasion based on false information and without the sanction of the United Nations. During the war we would have called American soldiers invading forces and afterwards we would have called them occupying forces," he says.

Asked how a Palestinian suicide bombing in a crowded Israeli marketplace would be reported, Parsons remains adamant that different conventions would apply.

"We don't condone acts of terror, but we'd be very careful about labeling particular groups as terrorists. There are an awful lot of double standards and a lack of balance that is not coming from us."

Parsons' line on U.S media is similarly uncompromising.

"U.S. networks are mostly owned by big business interests and have come under tremendous pressure from this administration. They are akin to the Soviet media in the seventies."

Ever since Al Jazeera Arabic broadcast video tapes of Osama Bin Laden in the aftermath of 9/11, the network has been a target for political controversy. In addition to being criticized by Rumsfeld, it was also attacked by British Prime Minister Tony Blair for showing the bodies of British soldiers.

"Al Jazeera is one of the best-known news brands in the world," says Dr. Nasser Hadian, professor of political science at Tehran University. "It has spawned a lot of imitators, but it remains the most watched broadcaster in the region and outside."

The channel was originally born out of failed plans by the BBC in the late nineties to launch an Arabic-language news channel in the region. When the British public broadcaster backed out of the project, the politically progressive emir of the tiny Gulf state of Qatar stepped in to bankroll the operation instead.

Al Jazeera International has opted to broadcast its signal out of London and is governed by a broadcast license issued by British media regulator Ofcom, which has stringent guidelines on issues of impartiality, taste and decency.

Parsons and Clark have also hired a string of high-profile journalists to underpin its editorial credentials, including such luminaries as Sir David Frost, the BBC's Rageh Omaar, former CNN anchor Riz Khan, former CNBC Washington correspondent Rob Reynolds and Kimberly Halkett from Canada's Global National network.