Two Iraqi boys raise Iraq's flag over their home's roof

BAGHDAD, June 11 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A U.S. paratrooper was killed and another seriously wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack Tuesday, June 10, at a weapons collection centre in Baghdad, bringing the death toll of U.S. soldiers in Iraq to a total of 30 since May 1, when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the war on Iraq effectively over.

"The soldiers were evacuated to a field medical facility for treatment, and one soldier later died of his injuries. The injured soldier is listed in critical condition," the U.S. Central Command said.

"The soldiers were manning the weapons collection point when a van with four passengers stopped in a nearby alleyway approximately 250 meters (yards) from their location," it added.

"Two attackers exited the van, and each fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the squad," elaborated the Centcom, noting that the attackers fled down the alleyway.

It said that U.S. forces launched a search of the area for the attackers, while the names of the casualties were withheld pending notification of the next of kin, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The paratroopers were from the 82nd Airborne Divisions 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Centcom said.

Concerned

As the Iraqi resistance gained momentum over the past weeks, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned Tuesday that the U.S.-led forces in Iraq would need many more months to eliminate the armed resistance.

Speaking in Lisbon, Portugal, at the start of a four-day tour of Europe, Rumsfeld blamed the attacks that have claimed mounting U.S. casualties on former Iraqi security forces, including the paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam.

"I would say the remnants of the Iraqi regime -- the Fedayeen Saddam and Baathists and very likely the special Republican Guard -- are still there.

"They are the ones that are periodically attacking coalition forces, sometimes successfully," Rumsfeld said.

"Do I think that's going to disappear in the next month or two or three? No. Will it disappear when two or three divisions of coalition forces arrive in the country? No," said Rumsfeld.

"It will take time to root out the remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime and we intend to do it," he argued.

The U.S. defense secretary said the mix of U.S. forces in Iraq is now being altered to create a more visible military presence on the ground in the face of the attacks, but denied that his visit to Europe was an effort to drum up more international troops for Iraq.

Amid fears over the flagging morale of U.S. troops in the face of the attacks, the U.S. army launched a glossy patriotic magazine with a circulation of 5,000 -- called "Liberator" -- to rally its Third Infantry Division.

'Embarrassing'

In an embarrassing move, the U.S.-led administration in Iraq admitted it had been forced to print hundreds of thousands of Iraqi banknotes bearing the portrait of Saddam -- in defiance of its own ban on the public display of his image.

The U.S. administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer acknowledged Tuesday that the decision was embarrassing for him personally.

"Since I issued the instrument telling people to do away with images of Saddam Hussein, I guess you could say it's not a joy anyway," Bremer told a news conference in Baghdad.

He said his administration had come under enormous pressure from Iraqis to remedy the shortage of 250 dinar notes, as the 10,000 dinar bill, the only other one in circulation, trades at a sharply reduced rate against the dollar.

Meanwhile, Bremer said $100 million in seized Iraqi funds would be allocated for stopgap public works projects to create thousands of jobs in a country where, unemployment was unofficially at more than 50 percent.

"These are short-term projects because they do not in and of themselves create sustainable economic activity," he argued.

On the political landscape, Bremer shrugged off threats by Iraq's main political factions to boycott an advisory council after he announced that he would lead its selection through informal consultations.

"It is really up to the people we have been talking to whether they want to take part in this consultation process or not," he said.

"If parties decide they don't want to take part in this, that's their choice. It's a free country."

Established parties which led the resistance against the ousted Iraqi regime from exile have expressed anger at Bremer's plans to sideline  them.

Scrapping plans for an interim government in the near future, the American administrator had decided to appoint Iraqis to a council that would advise him on policy decisions.

'Swift Transition'

For his part, the head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), Ahmad Chalabi, urged Tuesday a swift transition of political power to the Iraqi people, saying it would promote the search for Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York, Chalabi criticized the "reluctance" of the occupying forces in Iraq to open the political process to Iraqis immediately.

He also raised concerns over the decision by Bremer to scrap the promised national conference to form an interim government.

"It is not possible to manufacture leaders," Chalabi said.

"Leaders will emerge through a process of political debate. And the best way to have Iraqi leaders emerge is to have this political process started right away."

He also argued that opening the political process would speed up the search for wanted members of Saddam's regime and, in turn, weapons of mass destruction he insisted were still hidden in the country.

Finding the weapons, and indeed Saddam himself, was "a matter of information," Chalabi said, stressing that Iraqi cooperation was crucial to the hunt.

"It's a matter of knowing who to talk to and how to find these people," he argued.

Asked whether he would welcome the return of U.N. weapons inspectors, Chalabi claimed : "I don't think international inspection teams are very good at this."

'Saddam In Iraq'

Chalabi further alleged that Saddam was alive and operating in northern Iraq, and is using $1.3bn allegedly looted from the central bank to offer bounty for all American soldiers who are killed, the Independent newspaper reported Wednesday, June 11.

"The former dictator intends to have his revenge, in the belief that he can sit it out and get the Americans going," the daily quoted him as telling the CFR.

In recent weeks, Saddam had been spotted several times, moving in an arc from Diyala, north-east of Baghdad, around the Tigris River toward his home town of Tikrit and into the Dulaimi areas to the west of the Tigris, according to the INC leader.