Iraq

Iraqi chief warns Fallujah of attack

BAGHDAD - Iraq's interim prime minister warned Sunday that efforts to resolve the standoff in Fallujah peacefully have entered their "final phase" and that his patience is running short before launching "a military solution" to Sunni insurgents' hold over the city.

In another city of Iraq's stormy Sunni Triangle, an explosion hit a hotel in Tikrit on Sunday evening, killing 15 Iraqis and wounding eight others, hospital officials said. Police said the cause was not certain but may have been a projectile fired at the Sunubar Hotel.

Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's warning, delivered in a nationally televised news conference, occurred as U.S. forces prepare for a showdown with thousands of militants holed up in Fallujah - the city that has become the focal point of armed resistance to the Americans and their Iraqi allies.

Allawi appeared to be aiming to prepare the Iraqi public for an onslaught likely to unleash strong passions, especially among the country's Sunni Muslim minority.

ATTACKS: On Sunday, insurgents in Fallujah fired mortar rounds and rockets at U.S. Marines, who responded with artillery. U.S. aircraft also struck suspected rebel positions, Marine officials said. Clashes were also reported between U.S. forces and insurgents in Ramadi, west of Fallujah, killing seven Iraqis and injuring 11, hospital officials said.

TOKYO - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Sunday repeated his vow to keep about 550 troops in Iraq after the government confirmed that the decapitated body found on a street in Baghdad was Shosei Koda, a 24-year-old Japanese tourist who was kidnapped by the militant group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

"We cannot lose to terrorism, we must not yield to brute force," said Koizumi, who had immediately rejected the group's demand Wednesday to withdraw its troops from Samawa, in southern Iraq.

It seemed unlikely that Koizumi would suffer any political setback, since most Japanese seemed to be pointing instead to Koda's own carelessness. Koda reportedly dismissed many warnings in Amman, Jordan, not to travel to Baghdad and did not take necessary precautions there.

WASHINGTON - A senior Army contracting officer who had criticized a contract given to Halliburton had been subjected to a racist and sexist work environment, her former supervisor, a retired general, said in an affidavit.

The affidavit by retired Lt. Gen. Joe N. Ballard demonstrated the integrity of Bunnatine Greenhouse, said her attorney, Michael Kohn. Greenhouse, chief contracting officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has charged that the Army showed favoritism to Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, and that she was frozen out of decisions affecting it.

In the affidavit, Ballard said, "Ms. Greenhouse's race (African-American) and gender ruffled a lot of feathers in the Corps command and also contributed to the disparate and highly critical treatment she has received."

The affidavit was filed last year as part of a disciplinary proceedings against Greenhouse in which she was exonerated, Kohn said. A copy was obtained Sunday by the Associated Press.

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