Word: baghdad
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...days of legal immunity for civilian contractors in Iraq may be numbered, as Washington and Baghdad prepare to renegotiate a long-term bilateral security agreement. Ahead of negotiations on the issue, which could begin in two weeks, the Bush Administration is trying to hammer out its positions on key issues such as authority over combat operations and detentions, as well as other elements of the mission over the next 24 months and beyond. And top of the list of deal-breakers for the Iraqis, is contractor immunity...
...Contractor immunity may be unique to Iraq and difficult to demand of Baghdad, but the Pentagon still wants it. In interagency discussions arranged in preparation for the start of negotiations, the Department of Defense has said it want to ask the Iraqis to maintain status quo. The State Department, however, has argued strongly against that position. "We are just still internally discussing this, and still haven't really come out with a position," says the senior Administration official. A State Department official says discussions are underway. Says Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell, "Don't confuse interagency discussions with disagreement...
...warlord Moqtada al Sadr?s Mahdi Army. Mughniyah, says one American official, was Hizballah?s "chief of external operations" and "considered the key to their military activity." U.S. officials acknowledge that American spy agencies had intensely been tracking Mughniyah the past five years as he moved between Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut...
...collapse, Satterfield argued, the limits of al-Sadr's political power were exposed. That's when Maliki no longer felt the need to protect his biggest constituent in Parliament and gave U.S. forces the green light to enter Sadr City, the cleric's popular stronghold in north Baghdad. Ever since, Iraqi and U.S. units have been arresting commanders of the militia who have not gone underground...
...round face, broad shoulders and a habit of glaring at guests beneath his thick, black eyebrows. He came across as menacing yet dull. At the time, he was holding massive Friday-afternoon prayer rallies that he populated with poor workers bused in from the slums of Sadr City in Baghdad 100 miles to the north. I was hearing rumors that his followers were kidnapping and beating religious students who criticized him. The Coalition Provisional Authority was dithering about whether to arrest him on charges of killing a rival cleric the April before. To most observers, including myself, he seemed...