U.S. Planes Pound Najaf As U.S. Debate Over War Intensifies

BAGHDAD, Aug 11 (AFP) - US planes pounded Najaf in a bid to dislodge militia loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr from the center of the holy Iraqi city, after US soldiers took to the streets to urge civilians to leave town.
Heavy artillery fire and explosions were heard near the inner sanctum of Najaf, not far from the revered Imam Ali shrine.
Earlier, US troops drove through the centre of Najaf, using loudspeakers to order civilians to flee the combat zone immediately and militiamen to leave.
Residents said it was the first time US troops had called for evacuation and feared a massive attack on bastions of Sadr's Mehdi Army in the city's huge cemetery and around the Imam Ali mausoleum.
A senior US military official said Monday that marines had been given permission by the Najaf governor to enter the shrine to launch an attack.
On Tuesday, the military accused insurgents of kidnapping people and taking them to the cemetery for "torture, execution and burial".
"We will not allow them to continue to desecrate this sacred site, using it as an insurgent base of operations," said Colonel Anthony Haslam, commander of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
The statement came one day after Sadr vowed to defend Najaf "until my last drop of blood," rejecting calls from the prime minister for his men to lay down their arms and leave the city.
As fighting raged in Najaf, debate over the Iraq war intensified in the United States, with President George W. Bush claiming political vindication after his Democratic rival for the White House, John Kerry said he would have authorised military action in Iraq even knowing what he knows today.
"Almost three years after he voted for the war in Iraq, and almost 240 days after switching position and declaring himself the anti-war candidate, my opponent has found a new nuance," Bush told a campaign rally here.
"He now agrees it was the right decision to go into Iraq," said Bush, whose handling of the military operation has been a major issue in his quest for re-election in November.
Kerry voted to authorise force in Iraq but later turned critical of the war, lambasting Bush for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and establish a link between Baghdad and al-Qaeda terrorists.
Under pressure to say whether he would vote the same way today, Kerry told reporters Monday: "Yes, I would have voted for the authority, I believe it's the right authority for a president to have."
But speaking to reporters while campaigning at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, the Massachusetts senator said that as president he would have used the authority "very differently from the way President Bush has."
Kerry said Bush had rushed to war without a plan to win the peace and on faulty intelligence. He said the president had failed to "bring other countries to the table" to support American troops.
In Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf has said his country would not send troops to Iraq at present, but has not ruled out a change in policy if conditions improved.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi gave the party of disgraced Pentagon favourite Ahmed Chalabi 24 hours to leave its Baghdad headquarters.
An interior ministry spokesman insisted that similar eviction orders would be issued to parties which he said had seized state property after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, but acknowledged that this was the first.
An official from Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress party charged that the order was part of a continuing conspiracy against the group, after its leader was charged with banknote forgery late last week.
"The order was signed by the Iraqi government and delivered to us by an American soldier. The conspiracy continues," said Mithal al-Alusi.
Following threats against key oil infrastructure from at least two Sadr aides, the state-owned Southern Oil Company announced on Monday that it was halting the pumping of crude "for security reasons."
The southern oilfields around the city of Basra have been Iraq's sole source of crude exports since an attack on a pipeline artery to Turkey halted deliveries from the north last week.
Limited loading continued at Basra but a terminal official said exports were down to an average of 35,000 barrels per hour from 80,000 barrels an hour previously.
The Southern Oil Company refused to say whether pumping had resumed Tuesday. "We are closed today and I can say no more," an official said.
The disruption helped push New York crude prices above 45 dollars a barrel for the first time ever Tuesday, although they later fell back.
A Jordanian businessmen was snatched in Baghdad by an unknown group demanding a 250,000-dollar ransom, Amman's official Petra news agency said.
However, Beirut said a truck driver, kidnapped in Iraq, was heading home after becoming the third Lebanese hostage to be released in 24 hours.
Kidnappers of a Turkish driver also promised to release him in 24 hours if his company declared publicly that it worked for US troops and would no longer operate in Iraq, in a videotape shown to reporters in the city of Samarra.