Bad Tidings for Iraq's Election Day

     As Election Day in Iraq approaches, Robert Worth and Edward Wong file two more gloomy stories on the U.S. presence for Wednesday's edition.

     A story co-written by Wong and Worth paints a bleak scene of election prospects in Iraq: "Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Tuesday that he planned to meet Wednesday with recalcitrant Sunni tribal leaders to persuade them to take part in elections scheduled for Jan. 30. While Iraqi and American officials scrambled to keep the elections on track, the United States military announced that American battle deaths in November reached at least 135, largely because of the offensive in Falluja. That equals the number killed in April, previously the deadliest month of the war, when fighting raged in Falluja, Najaf and several other cities."

    The story includes a chart titled "Death Toll in Iraq" showing that "American military casualties in Iraq for November tied the peak of 135 in April." The toll, while tragic, is no surprise, given the huge task the U.S. faced in conquering the terrorist stronghold of Falluja -- a battle U.S. forces won overwhelmingly.

     Meanwhile, Wednesday's front-page story from Worth emphasizes the continuing "chaos" in Falluja in the text and headline: "In Falluja's Ruins, Big Plans and a Risk of Chaos."

     Worth laments: "As military officials here prepare to start letting the first residents return to Falluja, possibly as soon as mid-December, they face an unusual challenge: how to win back the confidence of the people whose city they have just destroyed. Their task will be made harder by the need to deter returning insurgents, who will try to sabotage the reconstruction with attacks, commanders say. American officials say they cannot afford to let this former insurgent bastion become a microcosm of the broader struggle in Iraq -- a rapid military victory followed by a lapse into violence and chaos. Yet even some American officers here are skeptical about their ability to bring back safely more than a small number of residents in time for the national and provincial elections in January -- a central goal of the offensive. Fighting goes on in the city's southern neighborhoods, where small groups of guerrillas are still holding out. American troops have found an unexpectedly large number of weapons storehouses, commanders say, and the need to dispose of them safely has delayed rebuilding efforts in those areas."

     While the terrorists who killed U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians alike have been rooted out of the city, Worth lingers on the damage done: "The full extent of the damage inflicted by American bombs, tanks and artillery is only now becoming apparent. The number of buildings destroyed in the fighting is far higher than 200, the figure released last week by the Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, engineers and commanders say. The city's power lines are so badly damaged that in most of the city, they will have to be ripped out and rebuilt from scratch -- a project that will take six months to a year, American engineers say. Damage to the city's water and sewer pipes, already badly corroded before the invasion, is milder but will also take months to repair."

For Wong and Worth's bleak pieces on the run-up to Election Day in Iraq, click here:

For Worth on the "chaos" in Falluja, click here:

Thank God? Abortion a "Non-Issue" in "More Civil" Italy

     Wednesday's "Letter From Europe" by Ian Fisher, "Italy's Church and State: A Mostly Happy Union," is a celebration of the amiable mix of religion and politics in that country, which Fisher hints is partially a result of abortion being a "non-issue" in the country (abortion is legal in Italy).

     Fisher contrasts the "conservative" pope's teaching on social issues unfavorably with his more popular (in Europe, anyway) liberal stands on the war and poverty: "Italians routinely ignore the conservative Pope John Paul II in matters of private morality, like contraception, divorce or marriage (far fewer Italians are marrying, in the church or out), but admire him deeply for his stands on issues like caring for the poor or his outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq, unpopular in Europe. Crucifixes may hang in public schools, but without the heavy political overtones that come with displays of, say, the Ten Commandments in public places in America." 

     Fisher applauds how Italy is now more like the rest of secular Europe: "The splintering a decade ago of the Christian Democratic Party, often seen as a main route for the church's influence, along with Europe's deepening secularization, helped make Italy more like other European nations. Despite the teachings of the church against contraception, Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe. Divorce and abortion became legal in the 1970s despite strong opposition from the church. But abortion is a non-issue here -- perhaps the best example of the more civil tone of the debate over religion and state. Here, it seems less an argument than a very long conversation."

     Later he gives the influential Italian pro-life politician Rocco Buttiglione the ultimate compliment: The way he speaks of the "complexities" of the abortion debate, he sounds almost liberal! "But many of his general views, to American ears, can sound almost liberal. In an interview, he spoke of the complexities of the abortion debate, how even unwavering anti-abortionists like himself need to understand the difficulties of asserting the rights of a fetus against those of its mother."

     Fisher's labeling tendencies toward abortion opponents tend not to waver either. Before the election, Fisher used the terms "strident" and "hard-line" to describe the opposition by some U.S. bishops to John Kerry's pro-abortion stance.

For the rest of Fisher, click here: