US Death Toll Reaches 2,100, Bomber Kills 17
By Bassem Mroue
The Associated Press
Tuesday 22 November 2005
Baghdad - A suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol Tuesday in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least 17 people, and three US soldiers died in two separate attacks, pushing the American death toll in Iraq to 2,100, officials said.
In Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, insurgents fired a mortar at a US ceremony attended by top officials to hand over a presidential palace to Iraqi authorities, sending the US ambassador and top commander scrambling for cover but causing no injuries.
The attackers in Kirkuk lured the patrol to a busy commercial street by shooting a policemen, then struck with the suicide bomb as authorities investigated the shooting, said police Capt. Farhad Talabani. The bombing took place on a road leaving Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad.
Police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qader gave the casualty figure of 17 dead and 26 wounded but did not say how many were civilians.
Attacks on the security forces in Kirkuk are common. Insurgents last week in Kirkuk opened fire on a police patrol, killing three officers, while a roadside bomb a few miles away killed two more police officers.
The US military said a US soldier assigned to the 2nd Marine Division was killed after a bomb detonated near his vehicle Monday near Habaniyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad. There are several US Army units assigned to the Marine division.
In addition, two soldiers from Task Force Freedom were killed Saturday by small arms fire while on patrol in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, another statement said.
As of Tuesday, at least 2,100 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,638 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.
The attack on the ceremony in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, occurred as a US colonel was giving a speech. A mortar whistled as it fell into a field about 300 yards away from the palace, but it failed to explode, according to an AP reporter at the scene.
US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the US commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, briefly went inside the palace, but emerged a few minutes later to continue the ceremony.
"This was an ineffectual attempt to stop the progress that goes on every day in Iraq," said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the US command.
Later, Hamad Hamoud Shagtti, the Salahuddin provincial governor, received a symbolic key to the palace and a deputy governor raised the Iraqi flag over the complex. They toured the building, which Saddam ordered built for his mother in 1991 and is considered the largest and most elaborate of the palaces constructed during his rule.
Johnson said the handover of the palace was an important step forward in Iraq's development, something that insurgent attacks have done little to slow down, despite daily violence.
The palace is part of a complex on more than 1,000 acres overlooking the Tigris River. There are 136 buildings on the property, with a combined 1.5 million square feet of administrative and living space, including 18 palaces, the US command said.
The turnover of the complex to the Finance Ministry and the provincial government was "a landmark event highlighting the increased capability of the Iraqi government to administer and govern itself," said a statement by Col. Billy J. Buckner, a spokesman for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq.
Since it was taken over by US troops in 2003, the palace has served as a division headquarters for US forces based in the region.
"Although 28 other coalition operating bases have already been turned over to Iraqi Security Forces control this year, the Tikrit Palace complex is the most significant transition of real estate thus far," the US statement said.
Iraq's anti-corruption commission said Tuesday that members of the former government who are under investigation will not be allowed to run in next month's parliamentary elections.
Judge Radhi al-Radhi issued a statement saying there are some ministers, undersecretaries and directors who are accused of financial and administrative corruption.
"Since there are financial corruption dossiers for these officials at the Iraqi special courts, they are not qualified to take part as candidates in the coming elections," the statement said.
A commission official, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the press, said Minister of Public Works Nasreen Berwari, who is the wife of Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer, and Hazin al-Shaalan, a former defense minister, are among those banned.
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BLACK BOX VOTING INVITED TO HACK DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINES
Nov 23, 2005: The California Secretary of State has invited Black
Box Voting to hack away at some Diebold voting systems. The testing
is set for Nov. 30, 2005.
Diebold Election Systems has been trying to re-certify its “TSx†touch-
screen machines in California. Diebold has added stronger passwords
and encryption, but even the consultant hired by California to evaluate
the system reported that the voting system remains vulnerable to
alteration of vote results. (More on consultant report and vulnerabilities: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/14296.html)
This week, officials at the California Secretary of State's office invited
Black Box Voting, a nonprofit, nonpartisan watchdog group for elections,
to try hacking into the Diebold system. A specific testing protocol was
provided by Diebold and the California Secretary of State’s office.
Though the opportunity was welcomed by Black Box Voting, negotiations
remain on the procedures. Black Box Voting contends that the proposed
testing violates California Election Code §19202, which governs the
request for voting machine testing formally submitted to the state of
California by Black Box Voting on June 16, 2005. Also, Black Box Voting
identified areas of bias in the proposed procedures, which would violate
normal scientific protocol and cause voters to lack confidence in the results.
At issue is Diebold’s insistence on being involved in setting up the testing
procedures, and Diebold’s provision of hand-picked machines, using new
voting systems not currently in use in California.
LET'S LOOK AT WHAT'SAT STAKE FOR DIEBOLD:
Black Box Voting had formally requested replication of the work by experts
Harri Hursti and Dr. Herbert Thompson. If Diebold does not survive the tests,
the firm may face a nationwide product recall, rivaled in notoriety only by the
exploding gas tank fiasco that afflicted the Ford Pinto. Diebold is dependent
on a particular outcome. Failing this test might cost them their elections business
altogether.
Diebold’s stake in the outcome is compounded by financial problems in the
Diebold ATM division, which produced a restatement of corporate profits and
caused a significant collapse in stock prices.
Though the formal request for replication of Black Box Voting security tests
was made over five months ago, Diebold delayed the test required by §19202
for more than five months. Diebold is now “permitting†the testing only under
conditions Diebold controls, using machines only Diebold provides.
THE PROPOSED PROCEDURES CONTAMINATE THE RESULTS
Black Box Voting has offered to resolve procedural defects in such a
way as to “enhance public confidence†as required by §104 (c) in the
California certification procedures. Instead of voting machines hand-
picked by the vendor which have never been used in elections, Black
Box Voting wants to test a randomly selected voting system used in
the last election -- the machines that elected the California governor
and the president.
Black Box Voting also proposes selecting machines from county
elections offices which have not shown a bias for Diebold, recommending
Alameda County for the evaluation of the touch-screens and Placer,
Modoc, Trinity or Santa Barbara County for evaluation of the optical
scan system. Within these counties, Black Box Voting proposed random
selection of the machine. The five counties suggested by Black Box
Voting are the Diebold customers who did not take part in a pro-Diebold
advertisement copied on back of the official flyer containing the agenda
for the certification hearing. Sec. State’s office’s Bruce McDannold
disavowed the flyer, saying his office had nothing to do with its distribution.
The scientific method attempts to minimize bias by removing the influence
of any party who profits from one outcome or another. In testing, those
who design the system are not supposed to be the same as those who
test the system.
Therefore, Black Box Voting is confident that the California Secretary
of State will comply with these reasonable adjustments.
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Tues., Nov. 22 to Sat., Nov. 27:
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