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Attack kills 2 U.S. civilians, Iraqi

ABU GHARAQ, Iraq - Two U.S. civilians working for the occupation authority were killed along with their Iraqi interpreter at a makeshift checkpoint here about 70 miles south of Baghdad on Wednesday by men posing as Iraqi police officers.

By some accounts, the three died in a volley of gunfire as they halted at the checkpoint. Other accounts said the lethal shots came from a chasing car.

They were the first U.S. civilian officials to be killed since the occupation began with the fall of Baghdad last April.

The two Americans, a woman and a man employed by the Pentagon, and the interpreter, an Iraqi woman, were not otherwise identified. U.S. officials in Baghdad said their names and details of their deaths would be released only after their families had been informed and a team of FBI investigators had composed a fuller picture of exactly what happened.

TERROR SUSPECT CAUGHT: Kurdish officials in Iraq said they had captured Ayyoub Afghani, reputed to be the chief bombmaker for the terror group Ansar al-Islam. The capture of Afghani could yield important information about recent bombings, particularly in Kurdistan, Kurdish officials said.

WASHINGTON - Pentagon and congressional investigators found widespread problems with Halliburton's cost estimates for billions of dollars' worth of contracts in Iraq as well as the military's oversight of those contracts, a Democratic critic said Wednesday.

In a memo to colleagues, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said Pentagon auditors found that a Halliburton subsidiary gave unreliable figures in a $2.7-billion proposal to provide logistics for troops in Iraq. Waxman's memo summarizing the auditors' report and criticizing Halliburton's cost estimates was prepared before a congressional hearing today on $9-billion in federal contracts in Iraq. Halliburton has received $5.8-billion in contracts.

Specific problems cited by the Defense Contract Audit Agency include Halliburton's failure to reveal it fired two subcontractors responsible for $1-billion worth of food service to American forces, Waxman's memo said.

Yet 16 days after the auditors' Dec. 31 "flash" report and after a second warning by Pentagon auditors, the Army Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton, formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, a new $1.2-billion contract.

In anticipation of casualties as the Marines return to Iraq this month, Marine Corps officials have streamlined their process for notifying the families of troops who are killed or injured.

Lt. Gen. James Conway, commander of the Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said that the method for providing information to families was too slow and "fractured" during the invasion of Iraq that began last March.

In some cases, families received few details about the cause of the death. In other cases, casualty assistance officers were able to notify families only moments before the news began to circulate publicly. Sixty-five Marines were killed by May 1, when President Bush declared an end to the major combat phase of the war.

An updated computer program has been designed to send information from the field back to the Marine's home base in advance of the news being released to reporters in Baghdad or at the Pentagon. Marines involved in the notification system also have been put on notice that the Marine brass wants family members informed and assisted quickly.