So if we just turn our soldiers into missionaries everything will be okay, Mr. Hayes?

First we sent our men over there to take out the WMD's, then it was to "spread democracy", now you want them there to "spread the message of Jesus Christ"? It so happens that people in Iraq already have a savior but unfortunately for Mr. Hayes it's Muhammed, not Jesus.

If we can't keep Muslims from killing each other over there, I don't think that trying to make them all Christian is going to be any easier.

With this kind of talk Hayes just plays into the hands of Al-Qaeda by confirming what their leaders have always been saying: those American soldiers are just modern Crusaders. He is thereby strengthening the beliefs of terrorists that want to kill every American soldier they come across.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died since the invasion in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein, which Bush said was an integral part of the "war on terror" following the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
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U.S. officials say 2,973 people were killed in those attacks, excluding the 19 hijackers.

The U.S. military reported the six deaths on Tuesday.

Three soldiers taking part in a patrol looking for roadside bombs were killed northwest of Baghdad on Tuesday, while two soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack southwest of Baghdad on Monday. A sixth was killed in another attack in the same area on Monday, the U.S. military reported.

Stung by Republicans' defeats in congressional elections in which voter discontent over Iraq was a major issue, Bush has said he will announce a new strategy in January after listening to his military commanders and State Department officials.

More than three years after an invasion Bush said was to remove the threat that Saddam posed to America, Iraq is gripped by violence between majority Shi'ites and once-dominant Sunnis. [...]

With a help of an interpreter, the American POW explained they do not wish to fight the Iraqis and asked their captors to help them to smuggle them to Turkey across Mosul, Syria-Iraq borders in order to request political asylum.

Also reported by Qudspress that a mass exodus take place right now in the city of Ramadi after reports of an imminent American attack on the city following the visit of the American Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to Iraq.

The city filled with people searching for taxis and trucks to flee the city, bringing with them some simple belongings, especially after the American forces announced to the residents of Al Althelh and Al-Mulameen, the need to leave and evacuate their homes.

US forces took control of many houses in the area by force. It also closed schools in the city after electricity was lost completely. American forces also cut off water from the city center, with the continued armed confrontations between the American forces and Iraqi resistance in the city.

The former Iraqi leader and two former aides were sentenced to death in November for crimes against humanity over the killings of 148 Shi'ites from the town of Dujail after he escaped assassination there in 1982.

"The court just upheld the verdict and sentence," Iraq's national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told Reuters.

When asked if the court had confirmed a Nov. 5 verdict, court spokesman Raed Juhi said: "Yes, I think so."

He said he expected the tribunal head to make a statement within an hour.
Saddam's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and former judge Awad al-Bander also received the death penalty for their part in the killing, torturing and deporting of hundreds of Dujailis. It was not immediately clear whether they too had lost their appeals.

In a comprehensive report last month, New York-based Human Rights Watch condemned the verdict as unsound, saying the court had been guilty of so many shortcomings that a fair trial had been impossible.

It said the court lacked the expertise for such a complex trial, had failed to give the defence advance notice of key documents, while statements by government officials had undermined its independence and perceived impartiality.

The military called the police headquarters a symbol of oppression for the city's residents and said the unit was suspected of torturing and murdering prisoners.

Many of the 127 people rescued - all of whom were suspected criminals - were crowded together in a small cell, living in "appalling conditions," the military said.

But the Basra council has stopped co-operating with the military in protest of what the council described as an illegal raid.

Mohammed al Abadi, head of the city's council, said the Christmas Day operation was in violation of earlier agreements and the council had not been forewarned.

A British military spokesman countered that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had voiced support for the mission to destroy the station, which had allegedly been carrying out illegal activities.

Maj. Charles Burbidge said al-Maliki "made a very clear indication that he wanted the serious crimes unit to be disbanded."

The operation came days after Iraqi officers were arrested Friday on suspicions of leading death squads. The unit is also accused of being responsible for murdering both local and international troops.

Seven high-ranking members of the serious crimes unit were arrested by British troops last week, raising fears that its captives would be targeted in retaliation. Members of the unit had fled by the time the British troops had captured the police station yesterday.

Meanwhile, 12 Iraqi civilians and three police officers were also killed in three separate bombings on another day of death and destruction in the country.

Yesterday's military operation was part of a larger joint British-Iraqi drive dubbed Operation Sinbad, which is aimed at "culling and rehabilitating" southern Iraqi police units of criminal elements.

Lieutenant Jenny Saleh, of the Royal Navy in Basra, said: "We had intelligence to indicate that the serious crimes unit would execute its prisoners in the coming days, so we decided to intervene."

Major Burbridge said the operation was "a very significant move".

He said: "We identified the serious crimes unit as, frankly, too far gone. We just had to get rid of it.

"For some time we've been talking about culling the police force; well this is exactly what we've done.

"We've removed a very significant and nasty part of the police force which has been scaring people in Basra, and ultimately it's going to make Basra a better place."

Troops from 19 Light Brigade, supported by Iraqi forces, surrounded the police station at 2am local time.

Royal Engineers then used a combat tractor to breach the walls, before Warrior vehicles from the Staffordshire Regiment entered the compound and infantry troops stormed three buildings.

A spokesman for the MoD said: "Some 1,000 British troops were involved altogether, including those manning an extensive cordon, set up to ensure a robust response if those criminals targeted attempted a counter strike. When the compound was secure, Royal Military Police entered the house to detain the errant police.

"They had all fled before the British arrived."

The spokesman said forces then destroyed the police station, which had been a "powerful symbol of oppression and corruption" for much of the Basra population.

He said: "Royal Engineers from 38 Engineer Regiment laid bar mines and plastic explosive against the major supports of the building.

"After taking away the prisoners for processing and having removed all the necessary evidence, the engineers detonated the charges."

The prisoners, many of whom were "likely to have been falsely imprisoned", the army said, were taken to other secure locations while hundreds of files and computers were seized to be examined for evidence.

Many of the prisoners were found crowded into a small cell, living in "appalling conditions", the army said.

Some had "classic torture injuries", according to Major Burbridge, such as crushed hands and feet, cigarette and electrical wounds and gunshot wounds in the knees.

An Iraqi security official said the government decided two days ago to eliminate the serious crimes unit and punish some officers.

The official said: "The interior minister decided to cancel the serious crimes unit in Basra city and replace it with a new one based inside the headquarters of Basra police.

"The decision was made two days ago on the grounds of security violations by the serious crimes unit," added the official.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Iraq, a car bomb exploded beside an open air market in Baghdad yesterday, killing nine civilians and injuring 11 others.

The explosion happened in Jadida, a mostly Shiite district in the eastern part of the Iraqi capital.

The targeted area often attracts crowds of shoppers, as well as labourers looking for work.

In another part of eastern Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew up a minibus, killing three people and injuring 19 others.

A suicide bomber also attacked a police checkpoint at the entrance to a university in the city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province and a stronghold of the Sunni-dominated insurgency.

Three officers died, a day after Iraq's interior minister said that attacks targeting police had killed some 12,000 officers since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

In other violence yesterday, a suicide bomber blew up an Iraqi army checkpoint south of Ramadi, and clashes then erupted between gunmen and soldiers. Mortars exploded in the area.

A sniper also shot and killed a police commando in Samarra, north-west of Baghdad.

Other British troops in Basra made the best of Christmas Day away from their loved ones by planning a Boxing Day rat hunt and brightening up their camps with decorations.

Officers also served their squaddies a traditional Christmas lunch, while army padres organised carol services.

The UK has 7,200 troops in the south of Iraq, mostly in the Basra area.

Captain Tane Dunlop, an army spokesman in Basra, said that while the troops were mindful of the time of year, their top priority remained attempting to ensure the safety and stability of Iraq.

"It is Christmas and obviously we are still here," he said.

"We have got a few things going on but that is going to come second to what we are doing out here. There is no day off. We are still on patrol, supporting patrols, working on logistics and so on."
The 'Station of Death' brought no justice, only terror, agony and extortion

FEW in Basra will mourn the passing of the Jameat police station, which was blown up yesterday as part of a joint British-Iraqi operation.

Known locally as the "Station of Death", its destruction will be seen as a major step in British troops' ongoing battle with organised militia attempting to take control of the southern city.

As long ago as February 2004, it was reported that the station had become a focal point for the most corrupt elements of Basra's new British-trained police forces.

But either through complicity or fear, the politicians were reluctant to act to crack down on the rogue officers.

The fact that UK forces felt able to act so decisively against the compound - as demanded by many before - signals a significant strengthening in their position.

Previously they have appeared powerless to tackle commanders from the serious crime and internal affairs units, who were believed to have once controlled a force of more than 10,000. Although nominally part of Iraq's law-enforcement agencies, the serious crimes unit was in actual fact "a force within a force", extorting money from local people and settling scores that dated back to the days of Saddam Hussein.

The militia members who make up the police force are issued with uniforms, but operate outside the law, torturing locals who do not obey them and demanding "protection" payments from businesses.

Captain Tane Dunlop, a British military spokesman in Basra, described the unit as "a criminal enterprise" which had been taking the law into its own hands.

"Crimes unit? That's pretty much what it does, rather than prevent," he said.

In September last year the serious crime unit captured two British soldiers, thought to be members of the SAS who were gathering information on the unit's mistreatment of prisoners.

British troops attempting to rescue the pair were initially repelled by an angry mob of locals throwing stones and petrol bombs.

They were recovered from militia at a nearby private house only after armoured vehicles were brought in to smash through the station walls.

That caused a major rift with Basra authorities, and the Ministry of Defence eventually had to express "regret" over the way the incident was handled.

This time, officials are stressing that Iraqi forces were fully involved, and have been working closely with them on the ongoing Operation Sinbad - which aims to purge rogue elements from the police.

Seven senior members of the serious crimes unit were arrested by British soldiers in raids last Friday, and commanders believe that reduced the opposition they faced when storming Jameat under cover of darkness yesterday morning.

Mohammed al-Askari, a spokesman for Iraq's defence ministry, said yesterday's operation was closely co-ordinated with the Iraqi government.

"Multi-national forces got approval for this raid from this ministry and with participation of the Iraqi army," Mr Askari said.

"We needed to change, adapt and expand the training here," said Major General Barbara Fast, who commands the U.S. Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. "We have significantly increased our humint (human intelligence) capability and will increase it even more."
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According to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's December report, "our ... government still does not understand very well either the insurgency in Iraq or the role of the militias." It said there had been too little investment in intelligence gathering and analysis.

The army, by far the biggest branch of the armed forces, has about 37,000 military intelligence soldiers, about a quarter of whom are in human intelligence. That is a larger share than in the past, when the U.S. intelligence community focused on satellite imagery and monitoring communications.

"But especially since September 11," Fast said in an interview, "we know how important it is to understand that which cannot be seen or monitored."

The training at Fort Huachuca is designed to mimic Iraq as closely as possible -- complete with Arabic-speaking Americans playing the role of the Iraqis dressed in robes and keffiyehs, the checkered headdresses widely worn in the Arab world.

During an exercise toward the end of a course in December, a tall man in flowing robes argued heatedly in Arabic with soldiers at a sandbagged roadblock at the entrance to a cluster of houses and huts resembling a military base in Iraq.

In interrogation booths, soldiers tried to extract information on car bombs and mortar attacks from reluctant "detainees," their questions and answers relayed through interpreters.

The training is based on rules of interrogation laid down in a field manual on "Human Intelligence Collector Operations," a 336-page document issued in September, the first new manual since 1992.

The manual applies to all four branches of the armed forces and bans harsh interrogation techniques, including the use of dogs, placing hoods over a detainee's head and forcing detainees to be naked, perform sexual acts or pose in a sexual manner.

ABU GHRAIB

In April 2004, pictures that showed American soldiers using such techniques at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad shocked the world, damaged America's image and prompted contentious debates over the definition of torture.

Fast, one of the few army women to make major general, was the highest-ranking U.S. intelligence officer in Iraq at the time of the Abu Ghraib scandal. An army investigation cleared her of wrongdoing and she was promoted to command the Intelligence Center in March 2005.

"There is no way you can rule out misbehavior entirely," Fast said, "but there are measures in place now, checks and balances, which make it very difficult."

The Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners and the protection of civilians are part of the curriculum at Fort Huachuca. The field manual expressly bans eight interrogation techniques that had been used at Abu Ghraib and the U.S. detention and interrogation camp at Guantanamo Bay.

During their Arizona training, future interrogators practice 19 "approaches" to detainees. Explained in detail in the field manual, these techniques range from the "emotional love approach" and the "incentive approach" to the "emotional fear-up approach."

To avoid incidents that could backfire on the interrogator -- or America's image -- the instructions carry warnings. For example: "The HUMINT collector must be extremely careful that he does not threaten or coerce a source. Conveying a threat may be a violation of the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice)."

The manual lists three interrogation techniques that require specific approval from a senior officer.

These are: "Mutt and Jeff", a version of the good cop-bad cop routine used by police; "false flag", a technique to trick a detainee into believing his questioners are from a country other than the United States; and "separation" to keep detainees apart from each other. That approach requires approval from a four-star general.

In the arduous debates that led to the new manual, according to officials involved in the process, a sizable body of opinion held that making details of interrogation techniques public handed an advantage to Iraqi insurgents and other anti-U.S. forces because they would know what to expect.

But that view did not prevail and the army posted the manual on its Web site in September.