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No mention of the option trading the days leading up to 9/11.
Very convenient.
"9/11 Panel Finds No Saudi Gov't Funding"
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040616/ap_on_re_us/sept__11_saudis_1
Once the product is out of the ground, It seems that there a wide range of parties willing to provide distribution. I don't think you can "turn off the spigot" at the distribution channel, merely force rerouting and increase distribution expense.
The Suadi's can stop production at the wellhead.
>>> maybe even help plan it (when you buy puts you got to have an exact time frame of "forecasted events"), <<<
Yes, many of the suspect puts had a short time remaining until expiration. Whoever purchased had a very precise target time frame.
"Why do we need a "Patriot law" when existing laws are sufficient but they are not applied"
It sure looks like the objective of the Patriot law is to give the Federal Govt. carte blanche to bypass constitutional guarantees when they want and to stop people from taking their money out of the country if they decide to vote with their feet and emigrate.
There have been allusions in the European press that the trail leads/led back to the Saudis, including the Royal Family.
If one is a true conspiracy theorist, one would suggest that the US govt. and allies don't want to cross the hand that feeds the world oil hunger.
"options trades are not mentioned on 1099-B, but still reported to IRS."
How are option trades reported to thei IRS?
Zeev,
A number of my weekly charts have started to roll over for the first time since the start of the up move in October 2002.
Do you have a possible alternative read that the high in January was the high for this up move and any bounce may just be a retest of the January high? Similarly to the March 2003 retest of the October 2002 low.
Thanks in Advance,
Dave
No,
I have no 20's to spare. LOL
RFID Tags in New US Notes Explode When You Try to Microwave Them
Adapted from a letter sent to Henry Makow Ph.D.
Want to share an event with you, that we experienced this evening.. Dave had over $1000 dollars in his back pocket (in his wallet). New twenties were the lion share of the bills in his wallet. We walked into a truck stop/travel plaza and they have those new electronic monitors that are supposed to say if you are stealing something. But through every monitor, Dave set it off. He did not have anything to purchase in his hands or pockets. After numerous times of setting off these monitors, a person approached Dave with a 'wand' to swipe why he was setting off the monitors.
Believe it or not, it was his 'wallet'. That is according to the minimum wage employees working at the truck stop! We then walked across the street to a store and purchased aluminum foil. We then wrapped our cash in foil and went thru the same monitors. No monitor went off.
We could have left it at that, but we have also paid attention to the European Union and the 'rfid' tracking devices placed in their money, and the blatant bragging of Walmart and many corporations of using 'rfid' electronics on every marketable item by the year 2005.
Dave and I have brainstormed the fact that most items can be 'microwaved' to fry the 'rfid' chip, thus elimination of tracking by our government.
So we chose to 'microwave' our cash, over $1000 in twenties in a stack, not spread out on a carasoul. Do you know what exploded on American money?? The right eye of Andrew Jackson on the new twenty, every bill was uniform in it's burning... Isnt that interesting?
Now we have to take all of our bills to the bank and have them replaced, cause they are now 'burnt'.
We will now be wrapping all of our larger bills in foil on a regular basis.
What we resent is the fact that the government or a corporation can track our 'cash'. Credit purchases and check purchases have been tracked for years, but cash was not traceble until now...
http://www.prisonplanet.com/022904rfidtagsexplode.html
If the coalescence model does materialize, what would you expect the impact to be on the gold and other precious metal stocks?
Thanks in Advance
Reference article on worthless options at expiration:
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/optioninvestor/03/100103.asp
I have used covered calls on high dividend stocks for about a year now in various accounts that I manage.
Stocks that I have used include:
BMY
DUK
FBF
GM
JPM
LYO
MO
RJR
SBC
BLS
Option premium / assignment premium is getting limited with the VIX so low. Which stocks do you like as covered call dividend capture candidates?
Only that it took the SEC this long to act.
A group of zealots is key to a successful pump and dump.
WAVX under investigation by SEC:
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/031218/tech_wavesystems_1.html
What do you think can happen to the bu$$ depending on the FTC ruling ?
Sadam Captured:
Big relief raly Monday ?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031214/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_saddam&cid=54...
Thanks for the info.
Can you indicate which funds you are using?
thanks,
Buying Canada real estate can have some unpleasant side affects for US residents.
MY understanding is that Canada takes a large portion of any capital gain as tax for non-residents who sell.
For anyone with an Options Xpress Acct:
If you get a chance, send a note to OptionsXpress to tell them that their option pricer is wrong for options strike prices ending in .5, i.e. 2.5, 7.5, 12.5, etc
The calculator truncates the .5 and actually calculates for 2, 7, 12 etc. strike price. I have notified them , but so far no action. More people equals more urgency. I am not sure what other parts of their site are affected. It seems like it also affects the delta calculation in your portfolio.
For anyone with an Options Xpress Acct:
If you get a chance, send a note to OptionsXpress to tell them that their option pricer is wrong for options strike prices ending in .5, i.e. 2.5, 7.5, 12.5, etc
The calculator truncates the .5 and actually calculates for 2, 7, 12 etc. strike price. I have notified them , but so far no action. More people equals more urgency. I am not sure what other parts of their site are affected. It seems like it also affects the delta calculation in your portfolio.
For anyone with an Options Xpress Acct:
If you get a chance, send a note to OptionsXpress to tell them that their option pricer is wrong for options strike prices ending in .5, i.e. 2.5, 7.5, 12.5, etc
The calculator truncates the .5 and actually calculates for 2, 7, 12 etc. strike price. I have notified them , but so far no action. More people equals more urgency. I am not sure what other parts of their site are affected. It seems like it also affects the delta calculation in your portfolio.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20031130/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ir...
Iraq Scientists: Lied About Nuke Weapons
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
Iraqi scientists never revived their long-dead nuclear bomb program, and in fact lied to Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) about how much progress they were making before U.S.-led attacks shut the operation down for good in 1991, Iraqi physicists say.
Before that first Gulf War (news - web sites), the chief of the weapons program resorted to "blatant exaggeration" in telling Iraq (news - web sites)'s president how much bomb material was being produced, key scientist Imad Khadduri writes in a new book.
Other leading physicists, in Baghdad interviews, said the hope for an Iraqi atomic bomb was never realistic. "It was all like building sand castles," said Abdel Mehdi Talib, Baghdad University's dean of sciences.
Seven months after a U.S.-British invasion toppled Saddam's Baath Party government, Iraqi scientists have grown more vocal in countering Bush administration claims, used to justify the war, that Baghdad had "reconstituted" nuclear weapons development, and that it once was a mere six months from making a bomb.
At best, Khadduri writes, it would have taken Iraq several years to build a nuclear weapon if the 1991 war and subsequent U.N. inspections had not intervened.
His self-published "Iraq's Nuclear Mirage," a chronicle of years of secret weapons work and of a final escape into exile, is part of this senior scientist's emergence from a low profile in Canada — intended to refute what he calls a "massive deception" in Washington that led the United States into war.
Months of searching by hundreds of U.S. experts have found no trace of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, just as U.N. inspectors found none before the war. No Iraqi scientists have confirmed the programs were revived in recent years.
Bush administration officials still speak, nonetheless, of a threat from such weapons — of Baghdad's "robust plans" for them, as Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) puts it — in defending last March's U.S. invasion of Iraq. They offer no hard evidence, however.
Khadduri, a U.S.- and British-educated physicist, writes that he did theoretical work on nuclear weapons as long ago as the mid-1970s, after joining Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission. By the late 1980s, as the secret bomb program accelerated, he was in a pivotal position as coordinator of all its scientific and engineering information.
The U.N. inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who dismantled the bomb program after Iraq's defeat in the 1991 war, saw Khadduri as a key source and conducted an all-day interview with him earlier this year in Toronto, where he has resided since 1998.
"Iraq's Nuclear Mirage," available via online booksellers, dismisses the U.S. contention that the atom-bomb establishment was somehow resurrected after the IAEA demolished it, U.N. inspectors were stationed in Iraq and Iraqi specialists were scattered.
"Where is the scientific and engineering staff required for such an enormous effort?" he asks. "Where are the buildings and infrastructure?"
The continuing U.S. weapons hunt amounts to no more than "investigating mirages," he says.
An ex-bombmaker still in Iraq is just as dismissive of the unsubstantiated U.S. allegations.
"There was no point in trying to revive this program. There was no material, no equipment, no scientists," former bomb designer Sabah Abdul Noor said in a recent interview at Baghdad's Technology University.
"Scientists were scattered and under the eyes of inspectors, totally scattered. To do a project, you have to be together."
Talib, the newly elected university dean, was an anti-Baathist who didn't participate in the bomb program, but was close to many who did. They vastly oversold their accomplishments before 1991, the physicist said.
"They put a lot of lies on Saddam Hussein," he said in a Baghdad interview. "They took a lot of money out of him through what you call, in English, bluffing." When their installations were finally demolished, it "saved their necks" by burying their mistakes, he said. "They could tell Saddam, `There's nothing left.'"
Khadduri, in his core position in the program, could attest to the overselling.
He writes that when he transferred top-secret documents of bomb program chief Jafar Dhia Jafar to an optical disc in 1991, he found the "blatant exaggeration" in a 1990 report to Saddam.
With its clever wording, Khadduri said in a telephone interview from Toronto, "one could easily have been convinced we had produced a couple of kilograms of enriched uranium instead of a couple of grams" — that is, about four pounds of bomb material instead of a fraction of an ounce.
A bomb would have required some 40 pounds of highly enriched uranium.
In a 1997 summary, the IAEA said there were no indications the Iraqis ever produced more than a few grams of such material. It also said there were "no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of amounts of weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance."
Khadduri and others said the design and actual production of a bomb would have been an extremely difficult task.
It was an impossible quest, "all futility," said one of Baghdad's senior nuclear physicists, Hamed M. al-Bahili.
Al-Bahili, who joined the Atomic Energy Commission in 1968 but remained outside the weapons program, said his colleagues inside "all knew they wouldn't achieve results." As for whether the program was later revived, he said, "these American inspectors are wasting their time."
This story is a little different than the others.
Iraqi Teens Pummel Bloodied U.S. Soldiers
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031124/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_640
This suggests that the so-called "tipping point" has been passed and the general population in IRAQ has started to turn against the US.
Nikkei Drops 3 Pct, Back Below 10,000
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/031116/markets_japan_stocks_11.html
How much of a pullback in gold price do you think is possible between now and next year?
TIA
There is no danger.
There is 100% certainty that the stock will be zeroed out. The company has stated this.
For the first time since the start of this rally in October of 2002; it appears that the fed is applying a heavy hand in reigning in the money supply.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/usfd/page5.pdf
Many Troops Dissatisfied, Iraq Poll Finds
By Bradley Graham and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32521-2003Oct15.html
Thursday, October 16, 2003; Page A01
A broad survey of U.S. troops in Iraq by a Pentagon-funded newspaper found that half of those questioned described their unit's morale as low and their training as insufficient, and said they do not plan to reenlist.
The survey, conducted by the Stars and Stripes newspaper, also recorded about a third of the respondents complaining that their mission lacks clear definition and characterizing the war in Iraq as of little or no value. Fully 40 percent said the jobs they were doing had little or nothing to do with their training.
The findings, drawn from 1,935 questionnaires presented to U.S. service members throughout Iraq, conflict with statements by military commanders and Bush administration officials that portray the deployed troops as high-spirited and generally well-prepared. Though not obtained through scientific methods, the survey results suggest that a combination of difficult conditions, complex missions and prolonged tours in Iraq is wearing down a significant portion of the U.S. force and threatening to provoke a sizable exodus from military service.
In the first of a week-long series of articles, Stars and Stripes said yesterday that it undertook the survey in August after receiving scores of letters from troops who were upset with one aspect or another of the Iraq operation. The newspaper, which receives some funding from the Defense Department but functions without editorial control by the Pentagon, prepared 17 questions and sent three teams of reporters to Iraq to conduct the survey and related interviews at nearly 50 camps.
"We conducted a 'convenience survey,' meaning we gave it to those who happened to be available at the time rather than to a randomly selected cross section, so the results cannot necessarily be projected as representing the whole population," said David Mazzarella, the paper's editorial director here. "But we still think the findings are significant and make clear that the troops have a different idea of things than what their leaders have been saying."
Experts in public opinion and the military concurred that the poll was not necessarily representative, but they characterized it as a useful gauge of troop sentiment. "The numbers are consistent with what I suspect is going on there," said David Segal, a military sociologist at the University of Maryland at College Park. "I am getting a sense that there is a high and increasing level of demoralization and a growing sense of being in something they don't understand and aren't sure the American people understand."
The paper quoted Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, saying in a Sept. 9 interview for the series that "there is no morale problem." He said complaints among troops are "expected" and part of "the Army's normal posture," whether the soldiers are deployed or not.
"We haven't had time to study the survey, but we take all indicators of morale seriously," said Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman. "It's the reason we've instituted several programs to address morale and welfare issues." A White House spokesman had no comment.
Some military experts pointed to good news for the administration in the survey. Military historian Eliot Cohen, who serves on a Pentagon advisory panel, noted that the proportion that said the war was worthwhile -- 67 percent -- and the proportion of troops that said they have a clearly defined mission -- 64 percent -- are "amazingly high." He added that complaints are typical. "American troops have a God-given right and tradition of grumbling," he said.
In the survey, 34 percent described their morale as low, compared with 27 percent who described it as high and 37 percent who said it was average; 49 percent described their unit's morale as low, while 16 percent called it high.
In recent days, the Bush administration has launched a campaign to blame the news media for portraying the situation in Iraq in a negative light. Last week, Bush described the military spirit as high and said that life in Iraq is "a lot better than you probably think. Just ask people who have been there."
But Stars and Stripes raised questions about what those visiting dignitaries saw in Iraq. "Many soldiers -- including several officers -- allege that VIP visits from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill are only given hand-picked troops to meet with during their tours of Iraq," the newspaper said in its interview with Sanchez. "The phrase 'Dog and Pony Show' is usually used. Some troops even go so far as to say they've been ordered not to talk to VIPs because leaders are afraid of what they might say."
The newspaper also noted in that interview that its reporters were told that some soldiers who had complained of morale problems had faced disciplinary actions known as Article 15s, which can result in reprimand, extra duties and forfeiture of pay. Sanchez said he did not know of any such punishments, but he added that they would have been handled at a lower level.
The paper's project recorded significant differences in the morale of various units, but overall found that Army troops tended to sound more dissatisfied than Air Force personnel and Marines, and that reservists were the most troubled.
Uncertainty about when they are returning home was a major factor in dampening morale, according to the newspaper. The interviews were conducted at a time when some reserve and regular Army units were learning that their tours had been extended. The Pentagon has since sought to provide a clearer rotation plan and has begun granting troops two-week home leaves.
Although Pentagon officials say they have seen no sign yet of a rise in the number of troops deciding against reenlisting, the survey suggested that such a surge may be coming soon. A total of 49 percent of those questioned said it was "very unlikely" or "not likely" that they would remain in the military after they complete their current obligations. In the past, enlistment rates tended to drop after conflicts, but many defense experts and noncommissioned officers have warned of the potential for a historically high exodus, particularly of reservists.
>>> I sleep well and make just as much or more than I do on the smaller sums I invest in equity mutual funds. <<<
What a sweet deal.
I hope the rate rise continues.
Loaded up on RRPIX earlier in the week.
The market may encounter significant headwind here with long rates rising smartly.
U.S. Weapons Expert Reports No WMD Found in Iraq
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031002/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_weapons_hunt_17
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Chief U.S. weapons searcher David Kay reported Thursday he had found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (news - web sites), a finding that brought fresh congressional complaints about the Bush administration's prewar assertions of an imminent threat from Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
Kay, in a report to Congress, described evidence of a possible small-scale biological weapons effort, and said searchers had substantial evidence of an Iraqi push to boost the range of its ballistic missiles beyond prohibited ranges.
But his team had found only limited evidence of any chemical weapons effort, he said, and there was almost no sign that a significant nuclear weapons project was under way.
"We have not found at this point actual weapons," Kay said. "It does not mean we've concluded there are no actual weapons."
"In addition to intent, we have found a large body of continuing activities and equipment that were not declared to the U.N. inspectors when they returned in November of last year," he said.
He cautioned that the search was still under way and said he should know within six to nine months if there was more to be found.
The lack of substantive findings so far brought immediate negative reactions from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress — and also seemed certain to raise new questions among allies overseas about the Bush administration's justification for going to war.
"I'm not pleased by what I heard today, but we should be willing to adopt a wait and see attitude — and that's the only alternative we really have," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said of Kay's briefing: "There was talk about facilities that might. There was talk about intent. But there was not talk about weapons of mass destruction. ... There's nothing we can point to and they're asking for another six to nine months."
The administration's assertions about Iraq's weapons programs and ties to terrorism, and the intelligence conclusions behind those assertions had driven the administration's case for war.
Critics have contended that either the CIA (news - web sites) and other agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community made serious errors in their analysis or the administration exaggerated what intelligence information it did have to persuade a skeptical world to support an invasion.
The administration is asking for $600 million to continue the hunt for conclusive evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, according to congressional officials.
Separately, CIA Director George J. Tenet, in a letter to the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee obtained by The Associated Press, rejected congressional criticism that the prewar intelligence findings were flawed.
Tenet's statement came in response to a blistering letter from Reps. Porter Goss, R-Fla., and Jane Harman, D-Calif., the heads of the House intelligence committee. That letter, dated Sept. 25, cited "significant deficiencies with respect to the collection activities concerning Iraq's WMD and ties to al-Qaida prior to the commencement of hostilities there."
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday "it will be unfortunate" if it turns out that intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq turns out to have been seriously flawed.
The findings cited by Kay included:
On biological weapons, a single vial of a strain of botulinum, a poison that can be used as a weapon, located at the home of a known biological weapons scientist.
On chemical weapons, multiple sources told the weapons hunting group that Iraq did not have a large, ongoing, centrally controlled program after 1991. There had been reports that Iraq retained some of its old chemical weapons but Kay said none had been found.
On nuclear weapons, Kay said in his statement to Congress that despite evidence of Saddam's continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, "to date we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material."
But on missiles, Kay said the team had "discovered sufficient evidence to date to conclude that the Iraqi regime was committed to delivery system improvements."
Slain CIA Agent's Dad Calls Leak Treason
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031002/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/cia_leak_spann_2
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The father of slain CIA (news - web sites) officer Johnny "Mike" Spann said Thursday he believes an independent counsel should investigate allegations that someone in the Bush administration exposed a CIA officer's identity — an act he called treasonous.
Spann, the first American killed in Afghanistan (news - web sites), died in a prison uprising. His father, also named Johnny Spann, said he is still angry because he feels his son's identity and hometown were disclosed before his son's family could be adequately protected.
Democrats in Congress, led by Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., are calling for a special counsel to be appointed to investigate who exposed a CIA operative who is married to a former ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson. Wilson had accused the administration of manipulating intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Iraq (news - web sites).
"If someone in the Bush administration leaked this, they need to be punished, and they need to be made an example of, because that's not just a leak, that's treason," Spann, of Winfield, Ala., told The Associated Press. "They should appoint an independent counsel so the American people can be sure, and let the chips fall where they may."
The officer's name first appeared in a July 14 story by syndicated columnist Robert Novak, and she was identified later by Newsday as an undercover officer.
Former CIA covert operations officer Bart Bechtel said the key issue is exactly what the officer's position was at the CIA at the time her name appeared.
"In general terms, it is not all right to identify a covert employee," said Bechtel. "That being said, many covert employees, especially case officers out there doing their jobs, it doesn't take long for them to be recognized as agency."
PSAFX is a very interesting fund.
Thanks for mentioning it.
Less follow through in Asia than I had hoped. Added SASPX and PRASX on the close.
Unhappy residents of IRAQ
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030913/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq&cid=540&n...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030913/wl_nm/iraq_funerals_dc&cid=574&am...
Angry Iraqis Mourn Deaths of Officers
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
FALLUJAH, Iraq - Angry mourners swarmed this central Iraqi city Saturday, firing into the air, attacking journalists and cursing the American occupation as they followed the flag-draped coffins of eight Iraqi police killed in a friendly fire incident involving U.S. troops.
The U.S. military apologized Saturday for the shooting that killed nine people — the eight Iraqis and a Jordanian guard — and badly damaged a hospital. U.S. troops only opened fire after they were attacked "by unknown forces," the military said.
But the explanation did not defuse the anger washing over Fallujah, a city of 200,000 in Iraq (news - web sites)'s most troubled region. The shooting was the worst case of friendly fire since major hostilities in Iraq were declared over May 1, and it served to intensify talk here of the heavy-handedness of American troops.
"We have had enough of the Americans killing us and then just saying 'Oh, sorry!'" said Salam Mohammed, 60, a Fallujah resident and a relative of some of the victims.
"We want the Americans to leave our country because they have brought us only death," said Taleb Hameed, a 30-year-old schoolteacher. "We are fed up with their apologies. We will continue our resistance."
On Saturday afternoon, the eight coffins were carried into a mosque for religious rites before they were given to family members for burial. Outside, gunshots erupted throughout Fallujah as mourners fired into the air. Some in the crowd chanted: "There is no God but Allah, and America is the enemy of Allah."
In an ominous message, Fawzi Namiq, the mosque's imam, said through loudspeakers: "Save your bullets for the chests of the enemy."
In the streets, angry residents roughed up reporters who came to witness the ceremony. A clergyman grabbed one armed man and prevented him from shooting at a departing Associated Press Television News car as it sped from the city. A CNN cameraman was beaten and an Associated Press photographer was hit in the face.
The U.S. military issued an apology for the shooting and said an investigation had begun. However, military spokesman Lt. Col. George Krivo said the Americans only fired after they were "attacked from a truck by unknown forces."
"Coalition forces," he said, "immediately returned fire and the subsequent engagement lasted approximately three hours. Regrettably during the incident extensive damage was done to the (Jordanian) hospital and several security personnel were killed, including eight Iraqis and one Jordanian national."
The military, he said, wished "to express our deepest regret for this incident to the families who have lost loved ones and express our sincerest condolences."
The shootout began in the early-morning hours Friday as several Iraqi police vehicles approached a U.S. checkpoint near the Jordanian military hospital here.
Iraqi policemen who survived recounted from their hospital beds Saturday how they begged the American soldiers to stop shooting, screaming in Arabic and English that they were police. The Americans kept firing volley after volley, they said. The fusillade raged for a half hour as more men died and others groaned in pain from their wounds, they said.
At the Fallujah General Hospital, policeman Alaa Hashem, 22, recounted how the bodies of two colleagues fell on him, something he said may have saved his life.
Hashem was in a pickup truck with 10 other policemen when their headquarters radioed them. They were ordered to provide backup to policemen traveling in another pickup and a sedan. The two vehicles were pursuing a white BMW suspected of involvement in robberies on the road between Baghdad and the Jordanian border.
"The BMW got away before we could join the chase," said Hashem, who sustained injuries to his left thigh and back. "When the two cars turned around to head back to Fallujah, we joined them and we led the way back when we suddenly came under fire."
Hashem said he heard the Americans shout "stop!" but his car veered off the road. For the next 30 minutes, he said, the Americans kept firing at the total of 25 policemen in the three vehicles.
"We shouted and shouted that we are from the police, but they kept firing from all directions. It was like an ambush," he said.
Another injured policeman, Assem Mohammed, 23, gave an account that corroborated Hashem's story except he did not recall hearing the Americans shout "stop."
"We carry out our duty and that's what we get?" said Mohammed, who was shot in his right leg.
Relations between Fallujah's residents and U.S. forces in the area have been on a knife's edge since shortly after the city was captured in April. Friday's killings were certain to inflame smoldering hatred of the American occupation.
For the rest of Iraq, the incident was likely to stoke resentment of U.S. troops already seen by some as trigger-happy.
Fallujah is part of the so-called Sunni triangle — a vast swath of land astride the Tigris and the Euphrates west and north of Baghdad — where the mainly Sunni Muslim population gave deposed dictator Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) his strongest base of support during his 23-year rule.
U.S. troops in the city came under almost daily attack for two months after a late April incident when soldiers opened fire on protesters, killing 18 and wounding 78. The Americans said they were fired at first.
The Americans pulled out of their permanent positions in the city in mid-July, leaving the local police in charge of security. The move dramatically reduced the number of attacks inside the city, but resentment of the Americans continued to simmer.
U.S. troops who had been directing reconstruction and other projects from the Fallujah mayor's office in the heart of the city were not there Saturday. Police at the mayor's office said the Americans' absence was understandable given Friday's events.
Nearby, a black banner was strung across the front of the one-story headquarters of the Fallujah Protection Force, a 100-man, U.S.-trained force to which the eight dead policemen belonged. The banner carried the names of the eight and declared: "The Fallujah Protection Force mourns the martyrdom of its members who have been killed at the hands of American forces."
Buying SASPX here.
Wish me luck.