Iraq militants have been holding American soldier Keith Matthew Maupin since April when his convoy was attacked in Iraq. Al-Jazeera reported today that his captors say they have killed him.

Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a videotape has surfaced in Baghdad that shows a person who was shot in the back of the head, but that the person was not identifiable.

The Arab satellite station aired video showing a blindfolded man sitting on the ground. Al-Jazeera said that in the next scene, gunmen shoot the man in the back of the head, in front of a hole dug in the ground. It did not show the killing. Maj. Willie Harris, public affairs spokesman for the Army's 88th Regional Readiness Command, said the videotape is being analyzed by the Department of Defense. "There is no confirmation at this time, that the tape contains footage of Matt Maupin or any other Army soldier," he said, adding that the Maupin family was briefed "as to the existence of a videotape."

National Guard Spc. Patrick McCaffrey, 34 was killed in Iraq last week. His mother, Nadia McCaffrey, is challenging President Bush's rule that photos of her son's coffin cannot be displayed.

Her son's coffin arrived in Sacramento Sunday night. She allowed the media to take photos and encouraged the press to disseminate them.

"I don't care what [President Bush] wants," Nadia McCaffrey said of the administration's policy that bans on-base photographing of coffins returning from Iraq and Afghanistan....Patrick "did not die for nothing," she said in a telephone interview. "The way he lived needs to be talked about. Patrick was not a fighter, he was a peacemaker."

Patrick, his mother said, had grown deeply disillusioned about the war. "He was really, really disappointed and hurt about the way Americans and Europeans were treated" in Iraq, McCaffrey said. When he called home, every two days, he also said he was ashamed by the allegations that American troops abused Iraqi prisoners. "He said we had no business in Iraq and should not be there," McCaffrey told The Times in another interview, shortly after her son's death. "Even so, he wanted to be a good soldier."

Patrick was Mrs. McCaffrey's only son. RIP.

by TChris

To avoid an anticipated surge of attacks on Wednesday, the Bush administration declared Iraq a sovereign country today, two days ahead of the scheduled transfer of power.

Iraq's outgoing U.S. governor Paul Bremer handed a letter to Iraq leaders sealing the formal transfer of powers before immediately flying out of the country.

Here's how the administration defines "full sovereignty."

[The government] is barred from making long-term policy decisions and will not have control over more than 160,000 foreign troops who will remain in Iraq.

Last we heard, the U.S. planned to turn over legal control of Saddam to Iraq but retain physical control of him because the Iraqis supposedly do not have secure enough jails to hold him. Today, Iraq's national security advisor says differently.

A handcuffed and chained Saddam Hussein will be hauled in front of an Iraqi judge within days to hear his arrest warrant, Iraq's national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said in a televised interview. "We're going to have control of Saddam Hussein. "We're going to have two American military MPs to hand him over to four Iraqi policemen. They will put a chain (on him) and take him to the waiting room," Rubaie told CBS anchorman Dan Rather.

For the first time, a national USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans think the war in Iraq was a mistake. The poll also finds the presidential race a toss-up.

Fifty-four percent of those polled said it was a mistake to send U.S. troops to Iraq, compared with 41 percent who expressed that sentiment in early June. Most poll respondents, 55 percent, also said they don't believe the war has made the United States safer from terrorism -- rejecting an argument that President Bush has repeatedly advanced in his rationale for the war.

Only a toss-up? Help Kerry. We can remove Bush in November. Money talks, Bush takes a walk. Give what you can and give often.

A few weeks ago we wrote about Gunner Palace: Baghdad Musical , a documentary film of American soldiers in Iraq. Today's Guardian has an interesting interview with its creator, Mike Tucker.

For eight weeks, the documentary-maker Mike Tucker lived in Uday Hussein's "obscenely ornate" Baghdad palace with 400 soldiers, filming as they took mobile phone calls from wives and girlfriends in the middle of firefights, searched family homes for weapons caches and rapped out their fears and frustrations to the camera. Tucker shadowed the soldiers of 2/3 Field Artillery, also known as the Gunner Battalion, in September 2003 and February 2004. The documentary he came away with, Gunner Palace, follows soldiers as they go on patrol, come under fire from insurgents and try to relax in the grounds of the sumptuous palace.

Tucker describes the now-overcrowded home of Saddam's older son as "Gone With the Wind meets Dubai". Uday left a pool, a putting green and stocked fishing pond, and the US military added Playstations, a gym and an internet centre. But the filmmaker found that, far from softening the reality of war, the modern communications seemed to make the situation more difficult.

A second lawyer for PFC Lynndie England has withdrawn from her defense team. The hearing has been continued to July 12.

The U.S. will transfer "legal custody" of Saddam Hussein to the new Iraqi government on June 30--but it will keep physical custody of Saddam. Why? The Iraqi government doesn't have a jail strong enough to hold him. We think that's a silly argument. Steel bars are steel bars. Locks are locks. If the U.S. is really saying they don't trust the new Iraqi Government not to be harboring a Saddam loyalist who might unlock the door and let him go, they should come out and say it.

Actually, we think Saddam will be safer in U.S. custody than in Iraqi custody. For every loyalist who might be willing to free him, there likely are 50 who would kill him instantly. Here's one of our favorite "steel bars" songs, co-written by Bob Dylan and Michael Bolton:

I've tried running but there's no escape
Can't bend them, and (I know) I just can't break these...
Steel bars, wrapped all around me
I've been your prisoner since the day you found me
I'm bound forever, till the end of time
Steel bars wrapped around this heart of mine

Update: Saddam writes home.

Pre-trial hearings have begun in Iraq for three soldiers charged with abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. The three soldiers involved are Sgt. Javal S. Davis, Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr. and Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II. At least one of the soldiers will argue the commands came from high above:

Paul Bergrin, a civilian lawyer for Davis, said last week in the United States that he would argue for a dismissal of charges because of "improper command influence" extending all the way to President Bush.

Charles Graner's trial promises to be the most interesting:

Graner, of Uniontown, Pa., has been accused of jumping on several detainees as they were piled on the floor. He is also charged with stomping the hands and bare feet of several prisoners and punching one inmate in the temple so hard that he lost consciousness. He also faces adultery charges for having sex with [PFC Lynndie] England last October. He could receive 24 1/2 years in jail, forfeiture of pay, reduction in rank, and a dishonorable discharge.

England's hearing begins Tuesday in Fort Bragg, N.C.

Update: The Judge has agreed to allow the prisoners to interview top Generals --specifically, Central Command chief John Abizaid and top Iraq commander Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez.

by TChris

Was the U.S. missile attack in Fallujah based on another intelligence failure? Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt assured reporters that multiple intelligence sources confirmed that the attacked house was used by the al-Zarqawi network. But a senior officer of the U.S. backed Fallujah Brigade doesn't believe that the missiles struck an al-Zarqawi safehouse.

Col. Mohammed Awad said members of the Fallujah Brigade had investigated the site and "affirmed to us that the inhabitants of the houses were ordinary families including women, children and elders." "There was no sign that foreigners have lived in the house," Awad said.

by TChris

After launching an attack with "precision weapons" that killed 20 Iraqis, including women and children, the Bush administration should start to wonder whether the first directive issued by a sovereign Iraq will be: quit killing us.

In a bloody surprise attack, the U.S. military launched precision weapons into a poor residential neighborhood of Fallujah on Saturday to destroy what officers described as a safe house used by fighters loyal to Abu Musab Zarqawi and perhaps, at times, by the fugitive terrorist leader himself. ... Images from the site of the blast showed two collapsed houses, with people in white robes picking through the rubble looking for buried victims and lost property.

Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt admits that they didn't know whether Zarqawi was in the house, but justifies the attack because intelligence indicated that several of his operatives were there. The second house apparently got in the way of the precision weapons, but families of the innocent dead will be comforted by Kimmitt's assurance that the attack's "collateral damage estimate was within permissible limits."

[comments now closed. Off-topic comments deleted. This post is about Iraq and the United States.]

by TChris

The Bush administration would like voters to believe that all will be well (at least for the U.S.) come June 30 when Iraq becomes "sovereign," but former ambassador and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy says the administration "has oversold the significance of the June 30 handover."

The new Iraqi government is not all that new. Some of its leaders have been on the U.S.-appointed interim Governing Council for the past year. The Bush administration's biggest challenge will be to help the incoming government gain credibility while convincing Iraqis that it represents real change and a meaningful step toward an Iraq under Iraqi control.

Conditions in Iraq won't change on July 1, and the U.S. military presence won't disappear. It would be absurdly optimistic to believe that Iraqis will view the new non-elected government as differing substantively from the current non-elected governing council.

Murphy wants the administration to let the new government exercise real power so Iraqis will feel invested in elections, confident that they are taking control of their country. He argues that the Bush administration should "bend over backwards" to tolerate Iraqi disagreement with U.S. policy. If Iraq will be sovereign (as Bush insists), deference to the new government's autonomous decision-making should be automatic. The Bush administration plainly isn't expecting much independent thinking from the transitional government, and isn't likely to be as tolerant of defiance as Murphy suggests it should be. We'll see over the next few months just how sovereign Iraq has become.