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Current Operations

• OIF/OEF Casualty Update 05 Feb 2004 [PDF]

• Transcript: Coalition Provisional Authority Briefing from Iraq 05 Feb 2004 -- Participating were Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations, Combined Joint Task Force 7, and Dan Senor, senior advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority
• Special Operations Troops Recount Iraq Missions AFPS 05 Feb 2004 -- Multi-service special operations troops have led the way to victory in overseas campaigns during the war against terrorism, a senior U.S. military officer said here today.
• 101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION TRANSFERS AUTHORITY TO TASK FORCE OLYMPIA CENTCOM Release 05 Feb 2004-- As hundreds of regional Iraqi leaders and Coalition partners looked on, the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) transferred authority and operational control of Ninewa, Irbil and Dahuk provinces to Task Force Olympia today at the palace headquarters complex in northern Mosul.
• 18TH MP Brigade HANDS LAW ENFORCEMENT DUTIES TO 89TH MPs CENTCOM Release 05 Feb 2004-- The 18th Military Police Brigade handed over the responsibility for the MP mission in Baghdad to the 89th Military Police Brigade Jan. 31 in a transfer-of-authority ceremony at the Warrior Palace here.
• Mortar Attack Kills Soldier, Offensive Operations Continue AFPS 05 Feb 2004 -- A U.S. soldier was killed and another was wounded today in a mortar attack at a checkpoint outside Baghdad International Airport in Iraq.
• Al-Qaida-linked group claims responsibility for twin bombings in northern Iraq PLA Daily 05 Feb 2004 -- A group said to be linked with al-Qaida on Wednesday claimed responsibility for the twin bombing attacks in Iraq's northern city of Arbil on Sunday that left atleast 105 people dead and more than 130 others injured.

Deployments

• Bush Defends His Decision to Go to War with Iraq Washington File 05 Feb 2004 -- President Bush says his decision to go to war against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq was correct for the United States and for the world, even though stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction have not yet been found in Iraq.
• Japan ground troop for Iraq mission arrives in Kuwait PLA Daily 05 Feb 2004 -- The first main group of Japan's core Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) for Iraq's reconstruction efforts arrived in Kuwait on a government jet Wednesday, Kyodo News reported.

US Policy

• BUSH-IRAQ VOA 05 Feb 2004 -- President Bush has again defended his decision to go to war in Iraq. V-O-A's Paula Wolfson reports in a speech at the windswept port of Charleston, South Carolina, the president said the liberation of Iraq was an act of justice and the right thing to do.
• Bush Says America Did 'Right Thing' in Iraq AFPS 05 Feb 2004 -- "Knowing what I knew then, and knowing what I know today, America did the right thing in Iraq," President Bush told a crowd in Charleston, S.C., today.
• IRAQ/INTELLIGENCE VOA 05 Feb 2004 -- C-I-A Director George Tenet has delivered a strong defense of pre-war U-S intelligence about Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction but says many questions still need to be answered about why no weapons have been found. The top U-S intelligence official spoke out just days after his chief Iraq weapons hunter concluded Saddam Hussein probably had no banned weapons at the time of the U-S led invasion last year.
• CONGRESS - INTELLIGENCE VOA 05 Feb 2004 -- Congressional Democrats are criticizing C-I-A Director George Tenet for not taking responsibility for faulty intelligence on Iraq's weapons before the United States went to war in that country. They are reacting to a speech by the Central Intelligence Agency chief in Washington Thursday.
• Tenet Details Intelligence About Iraq's Weapons Program AFPS 05 Feb 2004 -- It is still too soon to know if prewar intelligence estimates about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs were accurate, the U.S. director of central intelligence said here today.
• CIA Head Defends WMD Intelligence On Iraq RFE/RL 05 Feb 2004 -- For the second straight day, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush had a senior official make a public defense of the intelligence that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq last March.
• Rumsfeld says prewar intelligence on Iraq not manipulated PLA Daily 05 Feb 2004 -- US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said on Wednesday he was confident that the prewar intelligence on Iraq was not manipulated by the Bush administration to justify its war rationale.

United Nations

• Japan ground troop for Iraq mission arrives in Kuwait PLA Daily 05 Feb 2004 -- The first main group of Japan's core Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) for Iraq's reconstruction efforts arrived in Kuwait on a government jet Wednesday, Kyodo News reported.

Reconstruction Issues

• Iraq: Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani's Vision Of Iraq's Political And Religious Future RFE/RL 05 Feb 2004 -- Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has emerged as a pivotal figure in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq by demanding direct elections prior to the formation of a sovereign government. Yet even as he dominates the headlines, al-Sistani remains a reclusive personality whose views on most subjects are poorly understood outside his community.
• IRAQ / ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT VOA 05 Feb 2004 -- Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, escaped an assassination attempt late Wednesday in the southern city of Najaf, according to a governing council member close to the cleric. Details are still sketchy, and it is unclear if there were any injuries during the incident. The veracity of this report was later denied by both the US military and Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani's entourage. See here

Foreign Reactions

• BRITAIN / IRAQ VOA 05 Feb 2004 -- British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon says he did not consider it important to clarify before the Iraq war that the weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein was believed to have were short-range weapons for battlefield use. Mr. Hoon spoke under sometimes intense questioning from a parliamentary committee.
• WMD INTEL PROBES: BOTH BUSH AND BLAIR UNDER 'INCREASING PRESSURE' US Dept. of State IIP, Foreign Media Reaction 05 Feb 2004

News Reports