Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Defense Minister, “Critical Moment”

Iraqi guerillas took the “weekend aggressive.”

The series of attacks seems to back up the opposition to war, which stirred up in the U.S., since the unstable security situation and the stagnation of rehabilitation works in Iraq have already driven the U.S. government into a corner.

Intrepid attack: On October 26, the hotel in Baghdad where Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of Defense of the U.S., and his staff stayed, came under attack. CNN and many other foreign broadcasting companies reported, quoting the speech of the spokesperson of the U.S. army, that Al Rashid Hotel was attacked by about 6 to 8 missiles, at 6:10 a.m. on this day.

The missiles struck the 3rd, 8th, and 11th floor of this hotel. The details of the wounded and the killed have not been released, but Wolfowitz, who escaped safely from the 12th floor, said, “One American citizen might have been killed.” Rashid Hotel had been used as a guest house by Saddam Hussein, located in the western side of Tigris River. The U.S. military administration lifted the curfew (12:00-4:00 a.m.) at 4 a.m. this day as Ramadan rolls around.

Northern Baghdad is a vulnerable area: The armed guerillas, assumed to be followers of Hussein, mostly open a concentrated terror attack on the downtown of Baghdad or northern Baghdad, where many Suni Muslims live. Their target varied from the U.S. army men to the Iraqi people who act in concert with the U.S. armed forces.

In the western area of Tikrit, northeast of Baghdad where Hussein was born, a Blackhawk helicopter was assailed by guerilla’s missiles, with five soldiers injured.

At 6 a.m. on the same day, in Kirkuk, northeast of Tikrit, four trench mortar missiles assaulted the U.S. posts. The injured has not been passed on yet. At Al Washiti communication center, explosives have been founded.

In Harmin, 125 km south from Kirkuk, a bus packed with 50 Kurde Taekwondo exhibiting athletes, was shot at, 11 were injured and three are in critical condition. In Mosul, where Korean troops are expected to be stationed, on October 24, one U.S. soldier was fired at by K.I.A., who had been on sentry of a barn.

U.S.’s failure in intelligence operation: AP, quoting the newest U.S. Army analyzing review, reported, “The ability of intelligence operation and processing has regressed. The scouts are performing very poor, failing in reducing the casualties.”

The report, based on the situation briefs of two U.S. army inspection team, carried out from May-June, 2003, in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, pointed out that “The U.S. army lost time when they gathered up the outdated information to process and exchange. This inefficiency has occurred through the defects of the command.”

Right now, in Iraq, 69 tactical scout teams are working, producing 30 situation reports, which were originally expected up to 120 pieces daily. The report focused on that the shortage of Arabic interpreters and defective command structures are the main reasons for this “low productivity.”

Rae-Jeong Park ecopark@donga.com