IRAQ

A US soldier on the streets of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. US officials might see the trial of Hussein, which opens on Wednesday, as helping to justify an increasingly unpopular Iraq war, but it could end up as a double-edged sword for them(AFP/File/Jewel Samad)  

 

Iraqi wounded children rest in the emergency room of a hospital in Baghdad. The children and their father were wounded in a roadside bomb that targeted a US convoy as Iraqis started to prepare for an historic referendum on their draft constitution.(AFP/Karim Sahib)  

US soldiers from Bravo Company, TF 4-64, 3rd Infantry Division talk with an Iraqi boy beside their Bradley fighting vehicle as their unit escorts Iraqi army soldiers to polling stations to perform shift changes for soldiers currently guarding the sites, in central Baghdad.(AFP/David Furst)  

 Under the cover of darkness, US soldiers from the 1-64 3rd infantry division lay concrete barriers at Iraqi polling sites in advance of the upcoming referendum in an effort to help ward off attacks at the sites, in south-eastern Baghdad, 12 October. Iraqis will vote on a new constitution on Saturday(AFP/File/David Furst)  

U.S. army soldiers walk behind a razor wire fence as Iraqi soldiers (rear) stand guard at a polling station in Baquba, Iraq, October 14, 2005. A security clampdown emptied city streets and highways across Iraq on Friday on the eve of a constitutional referendum that militants have vowed to disrupt. REUTERS/Jorge Silva  

An Iraqi Sunni boy attends prayers in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Oct. 14 2005. Sunni insurgents launched five attacks against the largest Sunni Arab political party on the eve of Iraq's crucial referendum Friday, bombing and burning offices and the home of one of its leaders in retaliation after the group dropped its opposition to the draft constitution. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)  

US soldiers disembark from an army helicopter on their way to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, August 23, 2005. Afghan rebels are now travelling to Iraq to learn from insurgents there and returning home equipped with deadlier weapons and new techniques to use against US

 

 Iraqi children reach to an US soldier taking part in a joint patrol with the Iraqi army in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, Friday, Oct. 14 2005. U.S. and Iraqi forces stepped up security across Iraq and prepared to impose an overnight curfew in an effort to reduce insurgent attacks aimed at wrecking this weekend's constitutional referendum. (AP Photo/Mohammed Uraibi)  

U.S. army soldiers walk outside a polling station during a patrol near Baquba, Iraq October 14, 2005. A security clampdown emptied city streets and highways across Iraq on Friday on the eve of a constitutional referendum that militants have vowed to disrupt. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

 

A child looks on as Iraqi Interior Ministry special forces patrol the streets of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Oct. 14 2005. U.S. and Iraqi forces stepped up security across Iraq and prepared to impose an overnight curfew in an effort to reduce insurgent attacks aimed at wrecking this weekend's constitutional referendum. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

 

In this undated photo released by the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, Spc. Oliver J. Brown is shown. Brown, 19, of Athens, Pa., was killed in Iraq on Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2005, along with four other Pennsylvania National Guard members from the 109th Infantry,(AP Photo/Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs)