Hi-lites
- Finally, yesterday 466 new Iraqi police officers graduated from the Jordanian International Police Training Center, following eight weeks of training. That is the first class to have graduated from the Jordanian center. Iraqi Minister of Interior Nori Badran spoke to the students, addressed the students during the ceremony.
A second class of 500 students has already begun its training there and will graduate in six weeks. A third class of a thousand students will arrive at the training center early next month.
Within the next three months, the training center in Jordan will have a training capacity of 3,000 students. So 3,000 students will be able to train there at any given time.
At the training center, Iraqis assist trainers from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Jordan, Sweden, Finland and Austria. In addition to the Jordanian training center, the Ministry of Interior is training new Iraqi police officers at the Baghdad police academy as well.
- Attackers detonated an improvised explosive device near a coalition convoy that was transporting captured individuals, killing one of the detainees and wounding 11 others yesterday morning east of Mukadiyah (sp). The wounded were evacuated to a battalion aid station, and all are in stable condition.
- A raid was conducted to capture Ali Hussan Hamed al-Mushadinah (sp) and his four sons, who are suspected of conducting attacks on coalition forces for 1,500 American dollars per attack. The unit captured all five and transported them to a coalition forward operating base for interrogation.
- At 12:30 yesterday, Mohammed Fadid Abu (sp) turned himself in to coalition forces. He is the primary -- he is suspected of being the primary courier of information and funding between Mudhir Karbat (sp) and his brother Musir (sp). Mudhir (sp) has extensive international building holdings -- business holdings, and we have strong evidence that he is a primary financier for ongoing attacks in Al Anbar.
- Coalition patrols detained 524 illegal persons and confiscated 49 minibuses on the border. The illegal persons were re-transported to Iran and the vehicles were turned over to the Iraqi border police. Two bombs were discovered in the main court building in Al Hillah. They were disarmed by a special Iraqi police team. There were no injuries associated with this operation.
- Q I’m Ben Hasan (ph) with Spiegel (ph) Magazine. What is the current state of affairs with law 137, you know, the personal law which includes the marital status of the woman? There was a news item yesterday that Ambassador Bremer refuses to sign this law.
MR. SENOR: I think there’s been some confusion on the procedural evolution of this particular law. According to Dr. Pachachi -- and I would refer you to Dr. Pachachi. In fact, he’s holding a press conference tomorrow, his last press conference as president of the Governing Council for this month. According to Dr. Pachachi, this law never passed in the Governing Council. It was a technical matter. I don’t even think there was a sufficient quorum there to address it. So it never passed. It wouldn’t reach Ambassador Bremer’s desk unless it was a measure that was passed by the Governing Council.
So it’s not an issue of whether or not Ambassador Bremer would sign it. It’s not an issue he has considered. There are a number -- obviously, there are a multitude of issues that are taken up by the Governing Council every day they meet. Not every single one of them reaches the attention of Ambassador Bremer, simply because most of them aren’t submitted for a vote, and many of them that are submitted for a vote don’t pass. Then that particular measure falls in that category.
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