ugnet_: SADAM'S GENERALS ARE NOW RECALLED

[Edward Mulindwa]

Deal to End Falluja Standoff Is Announced;   10 Americans Killed   By John Kifner and Kirk Semple   The New York Times   Thursday April 29 2004   FALLUJA, Iraq — American military officials said today that a new Iraqi security force made up of former Iraqi soldiers and commanders will replace the American troops now in Falluja and assume responsibility for the city's security.   The new force, known as the Falluja Protection Army, will include as many as 1,000 Iraqi soldiers led by a former general from the army of Saddam Hussein, American military officials said. A Marine commander, Col. Brennan Byrne, said the force will be a subordinate command of the American military, according to news services.   News of the agreement emerged on a particularly bloody day for the American-led coalition, which is trying to subdue a tenacious and protean resistance. Ten American soldiers were killed in attacks in and around Baghdad today, the military reported. Eight soldiers died when a car bomb exploded near Mahmudia, south of the capital; one died in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in eastern Baghdad; and a roadside bomb killed another soldier in the town of Baquba, about 40 miles north of Baghdad, the military said.   Another American soldier died today as a result of wounds suffered in a vehicle accident on Wednesday, the military said.   Marines in Falluja and encircling the city were briefed today on the agreement to form a new Iraqi military division. The plan is supposed to take effect beginning on Friday. Some Marine units were already beginning to pack up today in preparation for the withdrawal, news services reported.   The new Iraqi force represents an about-face for the American authorities, who disbanded the Iraqi army following the fall of Mr. Hussein. Last week, the top American administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, said Americans would begin reinstating many of the "honorable men" who served as senior officers in Mr. Hussein's army.   The plan was drafted Wednesday night during several days of talks between American officials and several former generals of the defunct Iraqi army, officials said. It follows three days of intense fighting in Falluja, where American troops have maintained a monthlong cordon around the city in an effort to force a Sunni Muslim insurgency into submission.   It was unclear how much influence the new Iraqi force would have over the insurgents in Falluja and whether they would be able to coerce the rebels, either by diplomacy or force, to relent.   Still, it appeared today that top American military authorities were scrambling to control the release of the news. Hours after the news began to circulate in Iraq and abroad, an unnamed senior American official told CNN today that no such deal had been finalized.   The developments came a day after United States forces launched new airstrikes against insurgents in Falluja. American officials have said they are obeying the terms of a cease-fire brokered with civil leaders of Falluja, but have threatened to launch an all-out siege of the city if rebels did not hand over their heavy weapons.   The insurgents have mostly snubbed the American demand and continued to attack forward positions of the American forces in the city.   After the agreement was announced, new skirmished appeared to erupt in the city, and explosions and shooting were in the Golan neighborhood in northern Falluja, The Associated Press reported.   The crisis in Falluja and in the southern town of Najaf, where American troops are locked in a standoff with a radical Shiite cleric and his armed supporters, have presented the Bush administration with its worst crisis in Iraq since the toppling of Saddam Hussein last April. Many Iraqis now criticize the Americans for what they say is an excessive use of force, especially in Falluja, where hundreds of Iraqis and scores of American troops have been killed or wounded. Hundreds of families have been forced to flee during the fighting.   Authorities in Iraq and Washington fear uprisings could explode across Iraq if the military were to invade Falluja or Najaf.     The Mulindwas Communication Group "With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"             Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"