Troops close in around Baghdad

(U-WIRE) SAN DIEGO – Six days have passed since…

Troops close in around Baghdad

(U-WIRE) SAN DIEGO – Six days have passed since the beginning of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, and coalition forces – United States, Britain and Australia – have enclosed to within 60 miles of Baghdad. They have been racing across the desert from Kuwait City, next to the southern Iraqi border, while Baghdad and other Iraqi cities have been attacked by air strikes and cruise missiles.

More than 35 allied soldiers have been killed in various combat missions and accidents since the beginning, according to CNN on Tuesday. One of them, Lt. Thomas Mullin Adams, 27, was a resident of La Mesa, Calif. Adams was killed when two British helicopters collided Saturday.

In a separate incident, one U.S. soldier was killed and 13 were wounded when a U.S. soldier threw a grenade into 101st Airborne command center in Kuwait on Sunday, according to a San Diego Union-Tribune article last weekend.

The soldier reportedly launched the grenade because he resented the U.S. role in the war.

A few hours after the 48-hour deadline President George W. Bush gave to Saddam Hussein had passed, precision-guided bombs and missiles started raining down on selected targets in Baghdad. Hussein was believed to be in one of the buildings that was destroyed on the first night. Reports suggest Hussein may have been injured.

Hussein gave a speech, thought to be taped by U.S. officials, early Monday morning. Another official told The Associated Press that U.S. intelligence agencies believe the tape could be a bluff, recorded ahead of the war and edited to fit the circumstances.

In the speech, Hussein declared “victory is coming,” referring to the Iraqi military.

-Chris Yemma, The Daily Aztec (San Diego State U.)

Americans show growing support of war

(U-WIRE) NORMAN, Okla. – Despite conflict over U.S. foreign policy toward Iraq, Americans are rallying behind the United States, showing support for U.S. troops.

American approval of President Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq is at 71 percent, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted Sunday. This number is up 6 percentage points from the three previous days of the same poll.

According to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Saturday and Sunday, 72 percent of Americans support the war against Iraq, while 25 percent oppose war. -Erin Boeckman, Oklahoma Daily (U. Oklahoma)

Public considered to be uninformed about war

(U-WIRE) PULLMAN, Wash. – With the United States at war with Iraq, sentiments have run high on the Washington State University campus and nationwide. Yet most Americans do not fully grasp the context of our current war and the larger global issues leading to the fight, said Thomas Preston, an associate professor of political science at WSU.

“Look at the public opinion polls,” Preston said. “We’ve got 30, 33 percent [of Americans] who think Iraq was somehow related to 9/11 … the public is not well-informed.”

Preston is an expert in international relations, foreign defense policy, international security and political psychology and has worked for WSU since 1994. He is currently working on a book called “From Lambs to Lions” about nuclear and biological weapons. Preston also has served as a consultant for the Department of Defense, CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency.

If the war with Iraq ends fairly easily for the United States, it may become overconfident and attempt to enter a war with a much greater potential for loss of life, Preston said.

As for the end of the war, Preston said there was little doubt the United States would win but questioned the price.

-Rob Keenan, Daily Evergreen (Washington State U.)

United States continues war with Iraq, captured soldiers being treated poorly

(U-WIRE) NORMAN, Okla. – The Iraqi military captured a small number of U.S. military troops and has treated them inhumanely, Pentagon officials said.

The United States confirmed 12 soldiers were missing in southern Iraq and that some of these troops were seen in footage on Al-Jazeera, a Qatar-based television network. Al-Jazeera showed the troops interviewed by the state-controlled Iraqi television station.

According to the footage on Al-Jazeera, the Iraqi troops are treating the prisoners of war inhumanely and in violation of the Geneva Convention, various Pentagon officials said, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld spoke about the POWs on CNN, saying that if those on television were indeed coalition troops, then “those pictures are a violation of the Geneva Convention.”

U.S. General Tommy Franks, the leader of Central Command, based in Qatar, said the troops may have been lured into captivity by Iraqi soldiers pretending to surrender, then attacking the coalition. Al-Jazeera said the soldiers were captured in Nasiriyah, a large crossing over the Euphrates River northwest of Basra.

Article 13 of the Geneva Convention states that “prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present convention.

On Thursday, Iraqi officials appeared on the nation’s television station and announced that any coalition POWs would be treated according to the Geneva Convention.

-Justin Noel Shimko, Oklahoma Daily (U. Oklahoma)

Handling of terror suspects undermines United States on rights of POWs

WASHINGTON – The way the United States has handled terrorism suspects since Sept. 11, 2001, and Iraqi POWs in the last few days will complicate efforts to protect American soldiers captured by Iraq, several international law and military experts said Monday.

The Pentagon stresses that captured Iraqis – about 3,000 in the first five days of the war – are treated well. Some have even received medical care on a hospital ship in the Persian Gulf.

But television and newspapers also are showing blindfolded and handcuffed Iraqi POWs, an apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners. Some are seen cowering at gunpoint.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said there is little comparison between news shots of Iraqi prisoners, which he called “incidental pictures that some network may have taken” and the use by the Iraqi government of American POWs “for propaganda purposes.”

Others, however, said that while the images are not as stark as a video circulated Sunday showing U.S. soldiers being interrogated by Iraqis, they dilute U.S. complaints about the way Iraqis are treating the Americans.

“Allowing Iraqi POWs to be photographed may serve the Pentagon’s purpose in showing the Iraqi military collapsing, but it makes it much more difficult to protect the treatment of U.S. POWs,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

Eugene Fidell, director of the nonpartisan National Institute of Military Justice, said he was concerned when he saw a blindfolded Iraqi POW on the front page of The Washington Post.

“That really complicates matters when you’re trying to build a case about the treatment of your own POWs,” he said. “It just makes it easier for others to take pot shots at us.”

Roth and Fidell said the U.S. position is also hurt by its insistence on treating terrorist suspects and Taliban fighters from Afghanistan as “unlawful combatants” without the legal status of POWs and by the use of “stress and duress” interrogation techniques on captives in Afghanistan.

“American POWs in Iraqi custody need all the help they can get to secure their Geneva Convention rights,” Roth said. “It’s unfortunate that the United States hasn’t been a staunch defender of the Geneva Conventions in its own recent conduct.”

– Frank Davies, Knight Ridder Newspapers