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Baghdad Airport Closed in Debt Dispute
American soldiers refuel a tank at an Army base in Tall Afar, a northeastern city where U.S. forces kept up bombardment of an insurgent stronghold.
(By Jacob Silberberg -- Associated Press)
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"We are suffering from some of the inexperienced ministers," Fadhil Mahdi, a merchant desperate to get goods into the country, said at the home of his travel agent, where he had gone for help. "They must think of the people who will be affected by their wrong decisions."
The shutdown has the potential to create major headaches for companies doing business in Iraq, said Ron Cruse, president and chief executive of Logenix International, LLC, a Springfield, Va.-based logistics firm with contracts here.
Cruse also said he was concerned about the precedent set for dealings between Iraq ministries and foreign companies, at a time when the Iraqis are taking over the management of an increasing number of contracts. "Contractors are not looking forward to doing business with the ministries for exactly this reason," Cruse said.
Contractors, particularly security firms, play a major role in Iraq, and their presence eases the demands on the rebuilding Iraqi security forces and the 140,000 U.S. troops here.
In the northeast city of Tall Afar, meanwhile, U.S. forces kept up bombardment of a neighborhood that has become a stronghold for insurgents. Strikes by U.S. helicopter gunships and jets killed 18 suspected insurgents, the U.S. military said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces massed 5,000 troops at Tall Afar for a ground assault on the district. On Friday, troops laid a 24-hour curfew there. [Iraqi and U.S. forces launched an attack at 2 a.m. Saturday, said Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, according to the Reuters news service.]
"At 2 a.m. today, acting on my orders, Iraqi forces commenced an operation to remove all remaining terrorist elements from the city of Tal Afar. These forces are operating with support from the Multi-National Force," he said in a statement.
Residents and hospital officials in the western city of Qaim said jets bombed a suspected safe house of Abu Musab Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq group. Three foreign fighters and five Iraqis were killed, said Faraj Kubaisi, a hospital physician. There was no confirmation from the U.S. military.
And a new U.N. human rights report said authorities were losing ground in their struggle to restore the rule of law in Iraq.
The report, prepared by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, cited "serious allegations of extra-judicial executions taking place which underline a deterioration in the situation of law and order."
The U.N. report, released Thursday, took note of the Aug. 25 discovery of "the bodies of 36 men, blindfolded, handcuffed, bearing signs of torture and summarily executed" near the Iranian border. Families said the men were Sunni Arabs kidnapped by forces of the Interior Ministry, dominated by Iraq's now-governing Shiite Muslim majority.
In addition to the alleged summary executions and mass arrests, the United Nations said it had "first and second hand accounts . . . [of] the systematic use of torture during interrogations at police stations and within other premises belonging to the Ministry of Interior."
Staff writer Griff Witte in Washington, correspondent Jonathan Finer in Tall Afar and special correspondents Bassam Sebti and Omar Fekeiki in Baghdad contributed to this report.
