Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Operations
Deployments
US Policy
United Nations
Reconstruction Issues
Foreign Reactions
News Reports

Current Operations

• Desert Scorpion raid nets $8 million buried on farm Army News Service 23 Jun 2003-- In the darkness outside a six-foot metal gate blocking the entranceway to a Ba'ath party farm complex, 4th Infantry Division soldiers were poised for a raid early June 16. They watched four sleeping Iraqi guards and when two of them began to stir, the soldiers climbed over the gate and moved in.
• Mortar platoon guards detainees, patrols Tikrit Army News Service 23 Jun 2003-- Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Brigade's Mortar Platoon assumed they would have one job when they arrived in Iraq: to lob mortar shells at the enemy.
• Army begins process to hire local Iraqi translators Army News Service 23 Jun 2003-- The U.S. Army needs translators throughout Iraq and Titan, a Virginia-based company, will soon help the Army and its need for communication in the Al Salah Din province.
• Combat engineers destroy leftover Hussein-era ordnance Army News Service 23 Jun 2003-- The 4th Infantry Division's 10th Engineer Battalion, and the 890th Engineer Battalion, a National Guard unit from Picayune, Miss., blew up weapons and unexploded ordnance with a little help from local children near the town of al Fallujah June 17.
• US Confirms Attack on Convoy Believed to Include Saddam Regime Leaders VOA News 23 Jun 2003 -- A senior U.S. defense official has confirmed coalition forces attacked a convoy fleeing Iraq, amid news reports that Saddam Hussein or other top leaders in his former regime may have been in the vehicles.
• PENTAGON / IRAQ / CONVOY VOA 23 Jun 2003 -- A senior U-S defense official has confirmed coalition forces attacked a convoy fleeing Iraq, amid news reports that Saddam Hussein or other top leaders in his former regime may have been in the vehicles.
• US Special Forces Targeted Iraqi Convoy Last Week VOA News 23 Jun 2003 -- A U.S. defense official has confirmed reports that American special forces attacked a convoy in Iraq last week as part of ongoing efforts to seek out remnants of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime.
• Iraq: Arrest Of Top Aide Gives Hope That Hussein's Fate May Be Learned RFE/L 23 Jun 2003 -- Experts are conducting DNA tests on the human remains of an Iraqi convoy, destroyed in a U.S. missile attack last week, that might have been carrying deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his son, Uday. The attack underscores the continued uncertainty over Saddam Hussein's fate. Last week's arrest of a top Hussein aide appeared to confirm the Iraqi leader was not killed during the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
• Iraq: Do the Attacks Against U.S. Forces Pose A Serious Threat? RFE/L 23 Jun 2003 -- The number of attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq is rising. The increasing tensions are seen in Baghdad and the mostly Sunni areas around the capital. But do the attacks present a serious challenge to U.S. troops?
• Second Iraqi Oil Pipeline Blast Reported VOA News 23 Jun 2003 -- An oil official in Iraq says an explosion near the Syrian border has crippled another Iraqi oil pipeline.
• COALITION EFFORTS HELP REBUILD IRAQ (23 June 2003) CENTCOM 23 Jun 2003 -- Coalition forces continue to help rebuild Iraq through reconstruction and humanitarian aid.
• Second Iraqi Oil Pipeline Blast Reported VOA News 23 Jun 2003 -- An oil official in Iraq says an explosion near the Syrian border has crippled another Iraqi oil pipeline.
• ONE U.S. SOLDIER KILLED, ONE INJURED IN GRENADE ATTACK CENTCOM 23 Jun 2003 -- One U.S. soldier was killed and one injured in a grenade attack on a military convoy south of Baghdad, in Khan Azad, Sunday.
• Some Ambassadors Wear Uniforms Marine Corps News 23 Jun 2003-- They traveled thousands of miles to get here. They are the best 676 volunteers hand picked for the job. They are veterans of peacekeeping operations from Russia to the Western Sahara. Commonly known by the coalition forces as the "Rocks," they are the soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Republic of Korea.
• Task Force 1-35 forms line of protection for soldiers in Iraq USAREUR 23 Jun 2003 -- There is a thin line between the soldiers in Baghdad's city center and the vagrants who want to harm them, but crossing that line is like passing through a brick wall.

Deployments

US Policy

• U.S. Forces to Be in Iraq "As Long As Necessary and Not a Day Longer Washington File 23 Jun 2003 -- "The president's instructions are that we will stay [in Iraq] for as long as necessary but not a day longer," Fleischer said. "We're still in the very early stages of the post-major combat era, and it's too soon for anybody to have any concrete knowledge about how long it will be beyond the president's guidance."

United Nations

• PRESS CONFERENCE ON IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION SP0NSORED BY UNITED STATES United Nations 23 Jun 2003
• PRESS BRIEFING BY EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR, HUMANITARIAN COORDINATOR FOR IRAQ United Nations 23 Jun 2003
• U.N. Appeals for Additional Funds to Help Iraq Washington File 23 Jun 2003 -- The United Nations launched a new humanitarian appeal for Iraq June 23, hoping to raise an additional $259 million to allow the international organization to help with the emergency rehabilitation of the country through the end of the year -- supplementing funds raised earlier at the end of the Iraq war.
• U-N / IRAQ / APPEAL VOA 23 Jun 2003 -- The United Nations has launched an appeal for more than one-quarter-of-a-billion dollars for humanitarian aid in Iraq. The call for funds follows an earlier appeal for two-point-two-billion dollars in relief money.
• UN urges donors to make up shortfall in humanitarian appeal for Iraq UN News Centre 23 Jun 2003 -- The United Nations today appealed to donor countries to make up an outstanding $259 million in funding needed to carry out its humanitarian relief operations in Iraq through to the end of the year.
• IRAQ: UN revises humanitarian appeal IRIN 23 Jun 2003 -- The United Nations today appealed to donor countries to make up an outstanding $259 million in funding needed to carry out its humanitarian relief operations in Iraq through to the end of the year.

Reconstruction Issues

• U.S. Aid to Iraq Most Significant Since the Marshall Plan Washington File 23 Jun 2003 -- U.S. development officials in Iraq will seek in the near future to hire more local citizens to carry out the work of rebuilding the country, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Andrew Natsios says.
• Bremer Reviews Progress, Plans for Iraq Reconstruction Washington File 23 Jun 2003 -- The chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, says the first order of business in Iraq is to provide security and maintain law and order.
• U-N / IRAQIS / REBUILD VOA 23 Jun 2003 -- A group of former Iraqi technocrats is urging the international community to contribute to rebuilding Iraq.
• Iraq: U.S. Unveils Plans For New Iraqi Army RFE/L 23 Jun 2003 -- Iraq is to get a new army division numbering 12,000 troops within a year, the chief adviser for security issues in the U.S. civil administration, Walter Slocombe, said today.
• IRAQ/WOMEN VOA 23 Jun 2003 -- Almost two months after President Bush declared major combat in Iraq over, the country is far from secure. U-S forces have come under almost daily attacks in recent weeks, and intimidation and threats against Iraqis cooperating with the Americans are on the rise. Increasingly, many Iraqi women are coming under pressure to avoid the Americans, and to become more Islamic.

Foreign Reactions

News Reports