Iraq

Jan. 30 election won't be delayed, Bush says

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Thursday flatly ruled out any delay in Iraqi elections scheduled for Jan. 30 despite the unrelenting insurgency, rejecting Sunni Muslim boycott threats and casting the vote as a critical step toward bringing U.S. troops home.

In his strongest reaffirmation of the election plan, Bush attempted to end any doubt about whether the vote would go forward after days of debate among Iraqi politicians. Organizations representing the once-powerful Sunni minority have demanded the elections be put off until security is restored, while leaders of the majority Shiites have insisted the balloting proceed.

"It's time for the Iraqi citizens to go to the polls," Bush said.

FORT CARSON, Colo. - Citing national security, the Army closed a hearing Thursday on whether three soldiers will be court-martialed on accusations of suffocating an Iraqi general during an interrogation last year.

Allowing the public and the media to observe "would cause serious damage to national security" and could jeopardize the defendants' safety, investigating officer Capt. Robert Ayers said.

The Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a preliminary hearing, began shortly afterward.

The three defendants and one other soldier are accused of smothering Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, 57, at Qaim, Iraq, in November 2003. The soldiers could get life in prison without parole if convicted.

Chief Warrant Officers Jefferson Williams and Lewis Welshofer Jr., Sgt. 1st Class William Sommer and Spc. Jerry Loper are charged with murder and dereliction of duty. Welshofer's hearing will be held later.

Williams, Sommer and Welshofer are with military intelligence. All four soldiers were assigned to Fort Carson at the time of Mowhoush's death.

WASHINGTON - More than a month after it stopped publicly reporting individual Marine deaths in Iraq, the corps' main headquarters there intends to resume the announcements, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

Col. Jenny Holbert, spokeswoman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said it was decided that during the Fallujah offensive the Marines would stay silent until the Defense Department's public affairs office in Washington released identities of Marines killed. The names are not released in Washington until 24 hours after the victim's relatives are notified, which usually takes a few days.

Previously, the Marines would announce the fact of a death on the day it happened, without details. That practice ended sometime before the Fallujah offensive was launched Nov. 8.

FORT BRAGG, N.C. - Sgt. Hasan Akbar's statement acknowledging he rolled grenades into the tents of sleeping American soldiers will be admissible when he goes on trial in the attack that killed two officers, a judge ruled Thursday.

But the same judge excluded statements Akbar made to two sergeants who guarded him after the attack, saying Akbar had not yet been informed of his legal rights.

Defense attorneys also succeeded in getting a nearly a two-month delay in the court-martial, until April 5, so they can gather more documentation to argue Akbar was insane at the time of the March 2003 attack at Camp Pennsylvania, Kuwait.

Akbar is accused of stealing grenades from a Humvee and rolling them into the tent of fellow members of the 101st Airborne Division just days after the start of the Iraq war. Killed were Army Capt. Christopher Seifert, 27, and Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone, 40. Fourteen soldiers were injured.

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