Damage from insurgents is minimal?????

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Insurgents have infiltrated Iraq's security forces, a senior Iraqi official said, as the fallout continued over British forces' use of armed vehicles to smash their way into a police station to rescue two undercover soldiers.

The British government said it would not pull troops out of Iraq after the fury over the controversial rescue of two special forces soldiers arrested in Basra and allegedly handed over to local militia.

Iraq's National Security Adviser, Dr Mouwafak al-Rubaie, said he did not know how far security forces had been undermined by insurgents.

He told the BBC: Our Iraqi security forces in general, police in particular, in many parts of Iraq, I have to admit, have been penetrated by some of the insurgents, some of the terrorists as well.

I can't deny this. We are putting in place a very scrupulous, very meticulous vetting procedure in the process of recruiting a new batch of police and Iraqi army, which will, if you like, clean our security forces as well as stop any penetration in future from the insurgents and terrorists.

Al-Rubaie added: I can't give you a percentage of the extent of the penetration, but I have to admit that the Iraqi security forces are penetrated, to what extent I don't know.

Meanwhile U.S. officials revealed that nine Americans, including five soldiers, were killed by bombs in Iraq during Monday and Tuesday.

Four troops, assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, were killed Monday in Ramadi, the U.S. military said. The deaths brought to 1,904 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq. (Full story)

In Basra Wednesday the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior said it was looking into what led to UK armored fighting vehicles bulldozing the wall of a Basra police station jail in a bid to free the special forces soldiers.

Inside, troops discovered that the two men had been handed over to the militia by Iraqi police and freed them.

The men's capture Monday came just a day after British forces in Basra arrested two leading members of the outlawed Mahdi Army which is loyal to firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and is widely believed to have heavily infiltrated the local Iraqi police, the UK's Press Association reported.

The two arrested men from the Mahdi Army were the group's Basra area commander, Sheikh Ahmad Majid al-Fartusi, and his aide Sajjat al-Basri, PA said.

According to PA, the two British men detained by police were members of the Special Air Service and appeared to have been quickly handed over to militiamen by police.

The mission to rescue them, which was condemned by many Iraqis, was launched amid fears they could face summary execution, PA said.

One Iraqi member of parliament said that following the arrest of the SAS men, the Mahdi Army had tried to take them hostage to exchange them for its two leaders.

Four tanks invaded the area. A tank cannon struck a room where a policeman was praying, policeman Abbas Hassan told Reuters.

Standing next to mangled cars outside the police station and jail that he said were crushed by British military vehicles, he added: This is terrorism. All we had was rifles.

A spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said the British operation against the jail had been a very unfortunate development but his office later released a statement saying there was no crisis in relations with the British.

Iraqi policemen at the jail Tuesday surveyed a mass of rubble, broken plywood and air conditioning units where their perimeter wall and a number of prefabricated structures once stood.

A number of flattened cars appeared to have been run over by British Warrior armored fighting vehicles.

The two special forces soldiers, who were travelling undercover, were arrested after allegedly becoming involved in a firefight with Iraqi police at a checkpoint. Iraqi officials claimed they had shot dead a local policeman and wounded at least one other.

The British soldiers are believed to have feared the men were really insurgents dressed in police uniforms, PA said.

British Defence Secretary John Reid defended the subsequent action by British troops against the Jamiat police station jail, saying it was absolutely right.

We do not have designs to stay (in Iraq) as an occupying imperial power. Nor are we going to cut and run because of terrorists, Reid was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

The paper said that Reid and British defense chiefs would meet Iraqi PM al-Jaafari Wednesday in London to discuss security issues.

In dramatic scenes outside the jail Monday, British troops were confronted by an angry mob, hundreds strong, throwing stones and petrol bombs and several soldiers suffered minor injuries.

After they discovered the two SAS men were not in the jail, Iraqi police were confronted with a 30mm cannon and revealed they had been given to the militia.

Brigadier John Lorimer, commanding officer of 12 Mechanised Brigade in Basra, said: We will be following up with the authorities in Basra why the soldiers were not immediately handed over to the multinational forces as Iraqi law shows that they should have been.

It is of deep concern that British soldiers held by the police should then end up being held by militia, he added.

On lookout for insurgents, Marines yearn for home

Outside Sada, Iraq -- As the crimson sun rolled behind the Taraq an-Naja Mountains, a group of U.S. Marines scraped their shovels across the infertile, rocky soil of western Iraq, trying to set their mortar launchers deeper into the dust.

In the Euphrates River valley before them twinkled the white and yellow lights of Sada and Karabila -- key Iraqi towns near the border with Syria controlled by fighters loyal to insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Marines from the 1st Mobile Assault Platoon, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment camped out Thursday on a moonless night in the desiccated expanse overlooking the towns, setting up mortar firing positions and keeping an eye for any insurgent movement inside the settlements.

As they set up their mortars, the Marines discarded the metal bindings of 81mm ammo cases, leaving the long metal strips on the ground like some strange petrified seaweed mysteriously beached onto the Iraqi desert. On the bottom of a dry riverbed, salt reflected the receding light. A lightning flash, an early sign of fall, lit up the horizon over Sada, and a thunderclap followed.

Then darkness enveloped the encampment, and all became smells and sounds.

A Marine laughed in the distance. Another one, closer, lit a cigarette, which glowed orange in the dark. Dogs barked in Sada, and a donkey screamed. A humvee smelled of diesel fuel. A muezzin started a solemn call for the evening prayer. Somewhere, a car sped down a road. From time to time, helicopters roared overhead. Marines whispered loudly over the racket of rotors.

Cool wind carried noises across the shadowy desert, and Marines listened and sniffed in the darkness.

Night is different, said Gunnery Sgt. Derrick Link, 32, as he listened to the static on the humvee radio, a lifeline for his platoon to battalion commanders. You rely on different senses in the night. Your hearing instead of your sight. Everything sounds a lot closer than it is.

Night is also a time to contemplate and reminisce. The Marines talked about home.

Navy medic Michael Larson, 30, talked about 19th century Russian writers (I love Gogol!) and food.

I used to make focaccia bread, with olives and Parmesan cheese, he said. I'd make pasta Alfredo. I love to cook. Make the whole course.

When I go home, it will be, like, my girlfriend, food and my daughter, these three, nothing else.

Pfc. Dale Fellows, 19, talked about his girlfriend, too. She was a year ahead of him in high school in upstate New York, and now she goes to Northeastern University in Boston. She is an intern at the Boston Globe.

Link talked about his 9-year-old daughter, Samantha, who started cheerleading classes this year.

Stephen Thomson, 30, talked about his dream to go to medical school to become a radiologist.

They work in teams, and they really know their anatomy, and I'm very interested in anatomy and physiology, he explained.

At 9 p.m., desert wind kicked up dust and carried it across the encampment. The temperature dropped from the daytime's 95 degrees to 62 in a matter of minutes. Marines materialized out of the opaque darkness, stopping by Link's truck to chat, rest and smoke. Some moved on, disappearing in the blowing sand; others stayed to seek the comfort of companionship.

They rarely attack in the dark, Lance Cpl. Jared Treadway, 22, consoled himself, his shoulder-mounted launcher leaning against Link's humvee.

Link disagreed.

Last time we stayed overnight, last week, the first night we got hit pretty bad, he said, standing near his humvee, which was parked facing the lights of Sada.

But this time the troops were luckier. An orange trace of a lone mortar round arched out of Sada at about 5:30 a.m., injuring no one.

Maybe they are just waiting it out; maybe they're feeling there's a big fight coming, they just don't know when, Link said. That's what I would have done.

At 1 a.m., the Marines start digging foxholes next to their humvees.

Earlier in the evening, when their convoy crept through the desert, the Marines had watched the tracks that crisscrossed the desert: humvee tire tracks; small tracks, from gerbils or mice; and larger ones, from foxes or stray dogs. The ones to watch out for were human tracks -- possible signs that someone had laid a roadside bomb in the fine, ankle-deep dust.

But where they finally made camp, the dirt was packed hard and strewn with small rocks, making the wasteland look like the surface of the moon.

Next to the passenger door of his humvee, Link drew a rectangular shape on the ground with the tip of his shovel, and forcefully stabbed the ground. The shovel went in less than one inch.

F -- ing not good, he muttered. He took off his Kevlar helmet and his body armor. This ground is hard as a f -- ing rock. There's no f -- ing way.

But he continued to dig, as did the troops around him. For several minutes, the air filled with the sound of metal scraping against rock.

At one point, Thomson stepped away from the 3-inch-deep hole he had managed to gouge in the ground, contemplating his work.

It's like digging a grave, he says. I'll lay in my little grave, I'll put my sleeping bag on top of me, and I'll be warm. I've found out that the deeper you dig, the warmer it gets.

Last time we were out, he continued, the first day, I dug like a champion. The second day, I didn't dig deep enough, and I was cold.

He paused, then smiled.

I talk about digging as though I'd been digging graves all my life, he said, shaking his head.

Soon, everyone except for the Marines pulling guard duty was lying in the foxholes they had managed to dig. It became so quiet that the ticking of Link's wristwatch filled the air.

Then there were steps.

A Marine carrying a backpack walked past Link's humvee, looking lost.

I'm just freaking -- oh yeah, he said, remembering something, and walked away.

Link stretched out in his foxhole and fell asleep. Two hours later, the muezzin's call for prayer once again filled the dark predawn air.

Wake up, wake up, prayer is better than sleep, the muezzin called in melodious Arabic.

The Marines' night in the desert was over.

E-mail Anna Badkhen at abadkhen@sfchronicle.com.

How do the Pubs turn Gustav into a political advantage? We already see them shameless working all the angles and considering their options, but let's face it. They need all the help they can get now that Gustav has blow the wind out of the sails of their copy-cat showcase celebrity VP pick. It's just as well. A 48-hour ride on that boat was just about all the excitement JM could stand at one time.

Any political capital the RNC is trying to get out of Gustav is doomed to fail. What's a party to do? The collective sigh of relief they all are breathing over the Bush and Cheney speech cancellations to go put on their compassionate conservative hats and polish up their leadership image is producing wind gusts up to a Category 10. How can they celebrate the debut of their golden girl on a split screen they share with the drowning of New Orleans Part II and hold their collective breaths at the same time and pray those levies don't break again? One would think they would have the sense to postpone the event until all the ruckus dies down, but if they did that, people might actually start expecting the Prez and VP to deliver their speeches again. They can't have that, now can they?

The dems will not be too worried about Bush/Cheney speech cancellations one way or the other. The RNC opening night and the leadership image role down south are equal opportunities for Bush and Cheney to show their true colors and there is no way the media is going to be polite enough not to be reminding us all about the screw ups last time around, no matter how presidential they try to appear. It's a lose/lose situation no matter how you look at it.

That announcement sucked all the air out of the big speech, everyone is talking about Sarah Palin, not Barack Obama. And the best they can do is take potshots at Alaska and that she was in a beauty pageant...and oh I thought the rampaging moose thing was REALLLYYYYY funneeeee. Obama is not the only one front and center that people are excited about...and if these folks think the PUMA folks are going to fall into line because the DNC tells them to....they have another think coming. Just my opinion of course....