IHT: 7 U.S. soldiers hurt in grenade attack on compound Iraq

	7 U.S. soldiers hurt in grenade attack on compound Iraq
	Edmund L. Andrews with Terence Neilan NYT	Friday, May 2, 2003

FALLUJA, Iraq Seven American soldiers were wounded when Iraqis using grenades and small arms attacked a walled compound here early Thursday. The attack followed two incidents in the city this week in which U.S. forces shot and killed a total of 17 Iraqis.

Five of the injured Americans hurt Thursday at the military compound were evacuated for medical treatment, according to the U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar. All were said to be in stable condition.

Perhaps responding to the city's increasingly angry residents, U.S. troops on Thursday vacated a local school where a protest march Monday led to the death of 15 demonstrators.

The school had been taken over by the U.S. Army 82d Airborne Division, which left the city as scheduled Thursday. It was not known if the division had been due to give up the school after being replaced by the army's 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment's second squadron.

Though there was no further violence at the compound later Thursday, the crowd milled around the mayor's offices next door. People showed no sympathy for the injured Americans and the level of hostility was high.

Signs in English and Arabic read, "Sooner of later U.S. killers we'll kick you out" and "Men can be destroyed but not defeated."

Even the mayor, Taha Bedaiwi Awani, who had tried to play a role in easing the anger of the mainly Sunni Muslim city at the presence of the American troops, now says the soldiers should pull out.

Lieutenant Colonel Tobin Green, leader of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment's second squadron, said that he had held a morning meeting with civic leaders in an effort to build ties, but that there was no immediate indication of success.

U.S. soldiers have been trying to get out the message that they have not come as occupiers. But they are traveling in heavily armed convoys.

In another clash Thursday, Iraqis fired at a coalition patrol in eastern Baghdad, leaving one American with a minor wound, the command said.

American forces returned fire in both incidents Thursday, but there were no estimates of Iraqi casualties.

The attack Thursday in Falluja came only hours after soldiers in the compound and in a passing army convoy opened fire on anti-American demonstrators Wednesday. Hospital officials in Falluja, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Baghdad, said two Iraqis were killed and 18 were wounded.

American officers said the incident Wednesday took place after one of the protesters opened fire on them, a claim denied by residents.

Brigadier General Dan Hahn, the Army V Corps chief of staff, said American forces had solid intelligence that the "bad actors" in Falluja were members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party who were using crowds as cover during demonstrations. The city is known to have been a stronghold of the Ba'athist Party.

"The people in the city want to get rid of this problem," Hahn was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. "We have people in the city coming up to tell us who the bad actors are. In every instance, our soldiers have shown discipline and restraint."

In the future, he said, tear gas and other riot-control measures might be used to quash violent demonstrations.

In London, meanwhile, Britain announced that it will open its first diplomatic presence in Iraq in 12 years when a team of officials travels to Baghdad this weekend, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Thursday.

The four-member mission will open an office in the Iraqi capital to prepare for re-establishing an embassy once a new government is in place, Straw said in a statement.

The British Embassy in Baghdad closed on Jan. 12, 1991, five days before the start of the Gulf War. Christopher Segar, who was the embassy's deputy head of mission, will lead the team traveling to Iraq.

His arrival will bring to more than 60 the number of UN international staff working in Iraq. The United Nations last week established a permanent presence in northern Iraq and still operates daylight missions in southern border towns.

Ramiro Lopes da Silva, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, was accompanied by a team of 21 senior officials from Unicef, the World Health Organization and other agencies with key logistics and security personnel.

UN agencies say the biggest problem facing Iraq is not a serious shortage of relief supplies but rather a breakdown in order and a crisis of governance.

Another 650 international UN staff, who withdrew ahead of the war, are on standby. They are to join 3,400 Iraqis still employed by the world body once security allows.

A growing number of aid convoys, from the United Nations and other agencies, are crossing into Iraq, carrying hundreds of tons of food and medical equipment.

The war disrupted food supplies in Iraq, where 60 percent of the population were dependent on the United Nations' oil-for-food program. The program allowed proceeds from Iraq's oil to be used to buy food.

EU meets on rebuilding

European Union foreign ministers gathered in Rhodes, Greece, on Thursday to discuss the rebuilding of Iraq and how to convince Israel and the Palestinians to embrace the long-delayed "road map" to peace, according to the Associated Press.

During a two-day meeting starting Friday, the ministers will also review proposals by France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg for a European defense arm that Washington and some EU capitals think could erode the U.S.-$ led NATO alliance.

The meeting will include the 15 EU members and 10 countries that will join next year. Candidate Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey will sit in Saturday.

Europeans disagree with Washington over the role of the United Nations in Iraq after a war that produced bitter divisions in the EU.

The United States for now sees only a secondary UN role as it takes charge of nation-building in Iraq.

"It is of utmost importance to find common ground on how to deal with the 'day after'" in Iraq and the region, said George Papandreou, the Greek foreign minister and the meeting's chairman.

"I expect that the Middle East peace process and the role of the EU in the wider region, now a pressing foreign policy issue, will also be discussed in this context," he added.

Also this week, the leaders of France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg agreed to beef up military cooperation to make Europe less reliant on the United States and asked other EU nations to join them. They said such a move would strengthen rather than weaken the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

"With a strong European defense we contribute to a strong NATO," President Jacques Chirac of France said Tuesday.

Britain, Spain, Italy and other European nations that supported the war question that and argue a go-it-alone Europe will only erode NATO.

"There is a difference of view between ourselves and France about this," Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said this week. "At some point Europe is going to have to resolve this difference, because it goes to the heart of what Europe becomes."

Concerns include the idea of a planning and operations center for the EU independent of NATO. Other proposals include a rapid reaction unit based around an existing Franco-German brigade and a European strategic air transport command.

Alliance officials say the center would duplicate the NATO headquarters in southern Belgium. They insist the Europeans should improve their military capabilities instead of creating new bureaucracies.

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