Iraq

Report: Control of inmates unclear

WASHINGTON - About 100 high-ranking Iraqi prisoners held for months at a time in spartan conditions on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport are being detained under a special chain of command, under conditions not subject to approval by the top American commander in Iraq, the New York Times reports, quoting unnamed military officials. Saddam Hussein is not among the 100 at the airport.

The unusual lines of authority in the detainees' handling are part of a tangled network of authority over prisoners in Iraq, in which military police, military intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, various military commanders and the Pentagon itself have all played a role. Congressional investigators who are looking into the scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners say those arrangements have made it difficult to determine where the final authority lies.

SEOUL, South Korea - Washington wants to move some of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea to Iraq, South Korean officials said today.

"The U.S. government has told us that it needs to select some U.S. troops in South Korea and send them to Iraq to cope with the worsening situation in Iraq," said Kim Sook, head of the South Korean Foreign Ministry's North American Bureau.

The Associated Press, quoting an unnamed senior defense official in Washington, reported that the Pentagon is in discussions with Seoul about using some Korea-based U.S. forces in Iraq. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the shift was not imminent but would be part of the next rotation of American troops in Iraq, which is scheduled to begin late this summer.

IRANIAN LEADER: Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, weighed in on the side of anti-American Shiite rebels in Iraq, chastising the United States for "stupidity" and "shamelessness" for its actions across the southern part of the country. Khamenei's remarks, made in a speech to theology students and broadcast on Iranian radio, were the first harsh criticism issued by Iran about the U.S. offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr.

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