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Protests turns violent in Baghdad
« on: Oct 1st, 2003, 12:18pm » |
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Protests turns violent in Baghdad
U.S. soldier killed in Tikrit
Wednesday, October 1, 2003 Posted: 12:42 PM EDT (1642 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A crowd of angry, unemployed Iraqis threw rocks and set at least two police vehicles on fire Wednesday when they were turned away from a Baghdad police station, where they had hoped to apply for jobs.
Some of the estimated 300 job seekers told CNN's Harris Whitbeck that they arrived at the police precinct to fill out application forms but were asked for bribes and ordered away from the station.
"We want to get in there, but the only way you get into this force is if you pay extra bribe, extra money," said a former officer in the Iraqi army, who said he has been without a job since March. "Normal people who do not have money could not get admitted into this fighting force ... the security force.
"I've been coming here for four months," he said. "We've had so many promises, and nothing [violent] happened until now."
Several Iraqi police officers could be seen firing their weapons, apparently warning the crowd to disperse.
No casualties were reported.
A U.S. soldier was killed and two were wounded in an improvised explosive device attack on a convoy in Tikrit, according to a 4th Infantry Division spokeswoman.
The incident took place near the 4th Infantry Division's main Tikrit base.
A quick reaction force is searching for the attackers, the spokeswoman said.
The attack brings the number of U.S. forces killed in the Iraq war to 310 -- 198 deaths in hostile action and 112 in nonhostile activity, which includes accidents.
There is no reliable source for Iraqi civilian or combatant casualty figures, either during the period of major combat or after May 1. The Associated Press reported an estimated 3,240 civilian Iraqi deaths between March 20 and April 20, but the AP said that the figure was based on records of only half of Iraq's hospitals and the actual number was thought to be significantly higher.
U.N. vows to continue work
Amid mounting concerns in the United States about costs in Iraq, the European Union said Wednesday that it would pledge 200 million euros ($233.5 million) to help in the country's reconstruction.
The announcement comes ahead of this month's donor conference in Madrid, Spain.
The United Nations and World Bank have put the cost of reconstruction in Iraq at up to $75 billion.
The Bush administration has asked Congress for more than $20 billion for reconstruction work in Iraq.
The aid is part of an $87 billion package for military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan under debate on Capitol Hill.
Also Wednesday, the acting head of the U.N. mission in Iraq vowed to maintain the agency's humanitarian work in the country despite two deadly bomb attacks and cutbacks to its international staff.
Kevin Kennedy of the United Nations said the work will be done with thousands of Iraqi staffers, whom he called "indispensable."
"We are continuing to work. We are making adjustments to our operating modalities, to our staffing, to where our priorities are," said Kennedy, who temporarily is filling in for Ramiro Lopes da Silva while he is on holiday.
More than 20 people were killed in an August suicide attack at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad. A September bombing near the compound left an Iraqi security guard and the bomber dead.
At the advice of the U.N. security coordinator, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan downsized international staff last week.
Other developments
A teacher distributes books to students on the first day of the new school year in Baghdad on Wednesday.
• Classes for most of Iraq's more than 5 million students officially began Wednesday. In most cases, instruction will not start until Saturday, following registration and orientation. A few Iraqi students returned to school in mid-September. At a cost of $140 million, 1,061 schools have been rehabilitated, and 723 more are awaiting final inspection and approval, according to the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. Slogans from the former Baathist regime and pictures of Saddam Hussein have been removed, the coalition said.
• British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said the decision to go to war with Iraq was "not taken lightly." He said it was the "most difficult decision to take," but that it was the right one. Hoon, who is expected to be criticized by a judicial inquiry looking into the death of a British weapons expert, gave a short speech as part of an international affairs debate likely to touch on the Iraq war at the Labour Party's annual conference in the southern English resort of Bournemouth on Wednesday.
• An Iraqi panel Tuesday completed its blueprint for creating a constitution for the country and will soon submit it to the Iraqi Governing Council, a council source said. Among issues complicating the development of a constitution are the question of how to deal with Islamic and secular-based law and how to mete out power fairly to all the religious and ethnic groups that make up the population -- Shiite and Sunni Muslims and Christians, and Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. The creation of the constitution would set the stage for national elections.
• The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into who may have leaked the classified identity of a CIA operative, the White House said Tuesday. The operative is the wife of a former U.S. diplomat who had cast doubt on intelligence that President Bush cited as a reason Iraq posed a threat to the United States. Democrats have called for an independent probe into the leak, which Republicans dismissed as partisan politics.
CNN's Michael Holmes and Harris Whitbeck contributed to this report.
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