Naseer Al-Nahr, Asharq Al-Awsat

BAGHDAD, 14 December 2003 — The US-led coalition was reviewing the pay scale for the New Iraqi Army yesterday after some three hundred soldiers walked out on the fighting force’s first battalion. Meanwhile, a US soldier died and two more were wounded in a roadside bomb attack.

In Washington, President George W. Bush yesterday presented Saddam Hussein’s ouster as part of a “year of accomplishment,” but omitted any mention of the unconventional weapons at the core of his case for war in Iraq. In a weekly radio address detailing his administration’s record in 2003, Bush played up positive economic news, the passage of a prescription drug benefit for the elderly, and funding for global efforts to combat AIDS.

In Baghdad, the US military said it was considering a salary increase for Iraqi soldiers after the coalition announced Thursday soldiers had quit the new army’s first battalion.

“The cause of the problem that we are facing right now in that first battalion is based on pay,” Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told reporters. “We’re working to review the pay scales at this point and I think we’ll have some decisions in the coming weeks.”

Meanwhile, Sanchez said attacks on coalition soldiers had fallen to around 20 per day. November had proved to be the deadliest month for US soldiers, with 79 soldiers killed, since Saddam Hussein was ousted last spring.

The latest US fatality came early Friday when a military convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in the flashpoint town of Ramadi, a military spokesman said yesterday.

One soldier died after being rushed to a combat hospital. Two others were wounded.

In Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, US soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division gunned down late Friday an Iraqi man after soldiers said he opened fire on them from a car just outside a US military base.

Also yesterday, relatives of Iraqis detained by US forces in the prison at Abu Gharib, infamous in Saddam Hussein’s times as a center of torture and death, demanded visiting rights. Demonstrators gathered outside the main entrance to the jail claiming their loved ones were innocent.

Each one had a story to tell of betrayal, revenge or misfortune. Meanwhile, a senior officer in the 4th ID was relieved of his command and fined $5,000 after being found guilty of assaulting and threatening an Iraqi detainee in August, the military announced yesterday. Lt. Col. Allen West was the most senior officer reported to have faced a military judicial hearing in Iraq.