"Every great work of art goes through messy phases while it is in transition. A lump of clay can become a sculpture. Blobs of paint become paintings which inspire," Maj Gen Caldwell told journalists in Baghdad's fortified green zone.

"The final test of our efforts will not be the isolated incidents that you report daily, but the country that the Iraqis build." Perceptions of how the war is going have become a central factor in next Tuesday's congressional elections, which could determine President George Bush's freedom of manoeuvre in his last two years in office.

Maj Gen Caldwell was speaking after a series of public disagreements between Washington and the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, over proposed benchmarks for his government's performance, and over a recent US raid on a Shia district of Baghdad.

Mr Maliki had also ordered the removal of some US military checkpoints in the capital set up in the hunt for a missing US soldier, who was identified yesterday as Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, an Iraqi-American working as an interpreter who was seized by gunmen last month while visiting his Iraqi wife in Baghdad.

Maj Gen Caldwell described friction between the Baghdad government and Washington as "misunderstandings". He said that the death toll in the conflict had dropped by nearly a quarter in the past week, but conceded that October as a whole had been worse than earlier months. The Associated Press counted 1,272 reported Iraqi deaths in that month alone.

However, the case of the Cuban Five, antiterrorist fighters serving unjust sentences in the US, really reveals the manipulation of this issue, he asserted.

The Cuban official pointed out that the Cuban Five were simply trying to prevent possible terrorist attacks, and thus human losses, in their nation organized in Miami.

They did not use weapons, they did not damage any property or break any law, except that they did not advise the US government in advance of their mission, he said.

But that would have been ridiculous, as the US authorities support and promote terrorism, as was proven in this case, emphasized the president of the Cuban National Assembly.

Sgt. Santos Cardona, 32, a military policeman from Fullerton, Calif., served in 2003 and 2004 at Abu Ghraib as a military dog handler. After pictures of Cardona using the animal to threaten Iraqis were made public, he was convicted in May of dereliction of duty and aggravated assault, the equivalent of a felony in the U.S. civilian justice system. The prosecution demanded prison time, but a military judge instead imposed a fine and reduction in rank. Though Cardona was not put behind bars, he was also required to serve 90 days of hard labor at Ft. Bragg, N.C.

Before Cardona boarded a plane at Pope Air Force Base this week for the long flight to his unit's Kuwait staging area, he told close friends and family that he dreaded returning to Iraq.

One family member described him as "depressed," though stoic about his fate. According to a close friend with whom Cardona spoke just before his departure, the soldier is fearful that he remains a marked man, forever linked to the horrors of Abu Ghraib - he appears in at least one al-Qaeda propaganda video depicting the abuse - and that he and comrades serving with him in Iraq could become targets for terrorists. To make matters worse, his 23rd MP Company has been selected to train Iraqi police, which have been the target of frequent assassination attempts and, according to US intelligence are heavily infiltrated by insurgents. Attempts to reach Cardona directly were unsuccessful.

But Cardona's physical well-being is not the only issue of concern connected to his transfer. According to former senior U.S. military officers and others interviewed by TIME, sending a convicted abuser back to Iraq to train local police sends the wrong signal at a time when the U.S. is trying to bolster the beleagured government in Baghdad, where the horrors of Abu Ghraib are far from forgotten. "If news of this deployment is accurate, it represents appallingly bad judgment," says retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who commanded a division in the first Gulf War. "The symbolic message perceived in Iraq will likely be that the U.S. is simply insensitive to the abuse of their prisoners."

Retired Major General John Batiste was likewise surprised at the decision to send a soldier convicted of abuse at Abu Ghraib back to Iraq. His only comment: "You just have to wonder how far up the chain of command this decision was made."

Army public affairs specialist Major James Crabtree, who is assigned to the 18th Airborne Corps at Ft. Bragg, which has responsibility for Cardona's unit, said that Cardona, is a military policeman whose " unit happens to be deployed to Iraq, so he went with them." Crabtree said the Army commander overseeing the transfer of Cardona and other members of his unit said "there were no issues associated with [Cardona's new] deployment." He added that although a military judge ordered a reduction in rank for Cardona following his court martial, Cardona has since regained his previous rank of Sergeant.

The military jury acquitted Cardona of seven charges, including alleged attempts to harass a second prisoner with his dog. Cardona's lawyers argued that their client's actions at Abu Ghraib were condoned, if not approved in each case, by officers in charge of the prison, as well as senior officials in the Army command.

Shortly before he left for Iraq, Cardona told a close friend and family members that he was returning against his will. "He loves the Army and has deep respect for the chain of command," said a family member, who asked not to be identified by name, but who described Cardona as feeling duty-bound to accept his Iraqi deployment. The friend said that Cardona had described trying to attach another soldier's name tags to his uniform in hopes of concealing his identity from Iraqis, but was told by an officer to desist. According to this friend, Cardona said he had told at least one of his superiors that he feared for his safety in Iraq, especially because of his presence in the al-Qaeda video, but was told by an officer, "We need bodies [in Iraq]" and that he shouldn't worry about it.

Cardona's fears may be well founded. The Abu Ghraib scandal is still a fresh subject in Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world. The episode is still used in Jihadi propaganda, and is featured on Islamist websites. As for Cardona, his name can be referenced almost instantly on the Internet, along with news of his conviction and photos of him holding his large tan Belgian Malinois dog, as an Iraqi prisoner cowers against a concrete wall at Abu Ghraib prison. Dogs, which are considered unclean by many Muslims, have been used in U.S. detention facilities in both Iraq and Guantanamo to intimidate prisoners.

When the recently slain terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi executed American Nicholas Berg, he went out of his way to specify that the gruesome murder was an act of revenge for crimes committed by the U.S. military against Muslims at the prison. Both Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, use events at the prison to explain their calls for Holy War against the U.S. "Al-Qaeda and other Jihadis still cite Abu Ghraib to demonstrate what they call U.S. crimes against Muslims," notes Rita Katz, director and co-founder of the SITE Institute, who has made a study of terrorist videos and other propaganda. "Some of the videos actually feature the dogs used at Abu Ghraib."

After his conviction, Cardona's dog was removed from his care and control. But if the Army has its way, the former Abu Ghraib MP may soon be training Iraqi police in how to maintain security and proper conduct amid the country's chaos.

Green's defence lawyer, Patrick Bouldin, said that he had not seen the indictment but that his client intended to plead not guilty and "firmly stands behind that plea".

The incident occurred on March 12 in Mahmoudiya, Iraq, a village about 20 miles south of Baghdad, where Green was stationed with the 101st Airborne Division's 502nd Infantry Regiment.

The indictment says Green and others raped the girl and burned her body to conceal their crimes. It also alleges that Green and four others stationed at a checkpoint nearby killed her father, mother and six-year-old sister.

Green was discharged from the US Army in May 2006 for a "personality disorder", according to military investigators, and will be tried in US District Court. Green's lawyer said he was in custody but would not reveal where.

Nine soldiers from the 101st Airborne are accused of wartime atrocities stemming from the division's year-long deployment, which ended in September.

She was only the third American woman killed in Iraq, so her death drew wide press attention. A "non-hostile weapons discharge" leading to death is not unusual in Iraq, often quite accidental, so this one apparently raised few eyebrows. The Arizona Republic, three days after her death, reported that Army officials "said that a number of possible scenarios are being considered, including Peterson's own weapon discharging, the weapon of another soldier discharging, or the accidental shooting of Peterson by an Iraqi civilian."

But in this case, a longtime radio and newspaper reporter named Kevin Elston, unsatisfied with the public story, decided to probe deeper in 2005, "just on a hunch," he told E&P today. He made "hundreds of phone calls" to the military and couldn't get anywhere, so he filed a Freedom of Information Act request. When the documents of the official investigation of her death arrived, they contained bombshell revelations. Here's what the Flagstaff public radio station, KNAU, where Elston now works, reported yesterday:

"Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed. ...".

She was was then assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards, and sent to suicide prevention training. "But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle," the documents disclose.

The Army talked to some of Peterson's colleagues. Asked to summarize their comments, Elston told E&P: "The reactions to the suicide were that she was having a difficult time separating her personal feelings from her professional duties. That was the consistent point in the testimonies, that she objected to the interrogation techniques, without describing what those techniques were."

Elston said that the documents also refer to a suicide note found on her body, which suggested that she found it ironic that suicide prevention training had taught her how to commit suicide. He has now filed another FOIA request for a copy of the actual note.

Peterson's father, Rich Peterson, has said: "Alyssa volunteered to change assignments with someone who did not want to go to Iraq."

Peterson, a devout Mormon, had graduated from Flagstaff High School and earned a psychology degree from Northern Arizona University on a military scholarship. She was trained in interrogation techniques at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, and was sent to the Middle East in 2003.

The Arizona Republic article had opened: "Friends say Army Spc. Alyssa R. Peterson of Flagstaff always had an amazing ability to learn foreign languages.

"Peterson became fluent in Dutch even before she went on an 18-month Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission to the Netherlands in the late 1990s. Then, she cruised through her Arabic courses at the military's Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., shortly after enlisting in July 2001.

"With that under her belt, she was off to Iraq to conduct interrogations and translate enemy documents."

On a "fallen heroes" message board on the Web, Mary W. Black of Flagstaff wrote, "The very day Alyssa died, her Father was talking to me at the Post Office where we both work, in Flagstaff, Ariz., telling me he had a premonition and was very worried about his daughter who was in the military on the other side of the world. The next day he was notified while on the job by two army officers. Never has a daughter been so missed or so loved than she was and has been by her Father since that fateful September day in 2003. He has been the most broken man I have ever seen."

An A.W. from Los Angeles wrote: "I met Alyssa only once during a weekend surfing trip while she was at DLI. Although our encounter was brief, she made a lasting impression. We did not know each other well, but I was blown away by her genuine, sincere, sweet nature. I don't know how else to put it-- she was just nice. ... I was devastated to here of her death. I couldn't understand why it had to happen to such a wonderful person."

Finally, Daryl K. Tabor of Ashland City, Tenn., who had met her as a journalist in Iraq for the Kentucky New Era paper in Hopkinsville: "Since learning of her death, I cannot get the image of the last time I saw her out of my mind. We were walking out of the tent in Kuwait to be briefed on our flights into Iraq as I stepped aside to let her out first. Her smile was brighter than the hot desert sun. Peterson was the only soldier I interacted with that I know died in Iraq. I am truly sorry I had to know any."

Three US soldiers were killed in a single attack on Thursday afternoon when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Baghdad, the war-torn capital where 15,000 US personnel are battling to contain a vicious sectarian conflict.

On the same day, a marine was killed in Anbar province in the west of the country, the heartland of the Al-Qaeda militant group in Iraq, a US statement said, while confirming another death "due to non-combat causes" on Wednesday.

The deaths brought to 2,822 the number of US troops to have died in Iraq since the March 2003 US invasion, and the mounting toll gives more ammunition to critics of
President George W. Bush's strategy.

Daily Iraqi civilian casualties from the war have fallen by about a fifth since the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, but they still far outstrip US dead and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government remains fragile.

Baghdad seemed quiet on Friday morning as the bitterly divided Sunni and Shiite communities prepared to head to their separate mosques to mark the weekly Muslim day of prayers under a total vehicle curfew.

But reports of unrest filtered in from other parts of the country.

US forces backed by air support approached two buildings near Mahmudiyah, a short distance south of Baghdad, where the suspected Al-Qaeda militants were hiding. They called on those inside to surrender, the military said.

When the suspects refused to do so, the US troops entered the building and found five armed suspects, one of them in a explosive vest. "Coalition forces engaged and killed these five terrorists," a military statement said Friday.

Then, approximately eight more suspects attempted to flee the scene and were shot dead by air and ground forces, it said, adding the assault was aimed at capturing an Al-Qaeda operative.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Nahab Omran from the Shiite Bani Hassan tribe in the Kafal district near the southern town of Hilla was killed by gunmen, police said.

Jassim Mohammed Ahmed, imam of the northern city of Kirkuk's biggest Sunni mosque was killed by gunmen in the city's Gharnata neighbourhood.

A fuel station employee was also killed west of Kirkuk by gunmen.

Civilian deaths run at around 100 per day, according to the latest UN figures, although the Iraqi government now refuses to release up-to-date tolls.

Against such a backdrop, and with unexplained gunfire heard late into the night in central Baghdad on Thursday, Bush's Republican party is facing a tough poll challenge from its Democratic opposition in Tuesday's vote.

The Democrats need to win 15 seats to capture the 435-seat House of Representatives and six seats to take the 100-seat Senate.

If they do so, Bush faces the prospect of finishing the last two years of his mandate as a lame duck president, hobbled by congressional inquiries into the conduct of the war and legislative obstruction.

A New York Times/CBS poll released Thursday showed only 29 percent of US voters approve of the way Bush is managing the war, equalling his lowest ratings from six months ago.

Bush has tried to counter Democratic charges that he has lost control of the conflict with an eleventh-hour campaign tour to bolster core Republican support and reverse opinion polls that show his party losing.

"The Democrats have no plan for victory, they have no idea how to win," Bush told supporters in Montana. "Harsh criticism is not a plan for victory. You can't win the war unless you're willing to fight the war."

The current US plan for Iraq is to support Maliki's coalition and build up Iraq's beleaguered security forces so that, within 12 to 18 months, they are ready to fight the insurgency without US military support.

This strategy has been knocked sideways, however, by the eruption of a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites in parallel to the rebellion, and by shortcomings in the US-led reconstruction effort.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Thursday he did not envisage US-led forces withdrawing from his country before two to three years, despite Maliki's call for them to be ready to hand over to Iraqi forces within six months.

Ithawi frequently "harbored foreign fighters who entered Iraq." The statement said the U.S. aircraft used "precision laser guided munitions," when targeted the vehicle carrying Abu Taha and his driver.

Al-Ithawi's death has caused great damage to Al-Qaida organization in Iraq, it added.

"I personally think that two or three years would be enough to rebuild our forces and to say 'bye bye and thank you' to our friends," said the president, who arrived in Paris late Wednesday for a three-day official visit.

Talabani's comments came after the remarks by the U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, that the Iraqi armed forces would be able to safeguard the country within 12 to 18 months.

Talabani also expressed his wish to turn over a page of France's disagreement with the U.S.-led war which broke out in 2003 and toppled Saddam Hussein's regime.

"The goal of this visit is to endow a new momentum in the bilateral relations," Talabani said, appealing to French people to look at his country with "a new eye."

Talabani was set to meet with French President Jacques Chirac later in the day.