'Berm' around Baghdad planned

BAGHDAD, Iraq — In the latest proposal to curb the seemingly unstoppable violence in Baghdad, the Iraqi government is planning to build a defensive barrier around the city to keep attackers out, though it isn't clear whether it will be a trench or a berm.

Iraq's Interior Ministry said Friday that the government wants to dig a trench encircling the capital, but at a news conference in Washington, President Bush said the barrier would be a berm.

"They're building a berm around the city to make it harder for people to come in with explosive devices, for example," he said.

U.S. officials in Washington said they could not explain the discrepancy. In Baghdad, military spokesman Sgt. Jeremy Pitcher said he was sure Bush and the Iraqi government are talking about the same plan.

"I know the Iraqi government said trench, and then President Bush said berm," he said. "There will probably be dirt moving somewhere."

Whether a trench or a berm, however, the defensive plan would be a massive, difficult undertaking. Baghdad's circumference runs to roughly 100 miles, most reconstruction projects are languishing unfinished or unstarted because of security concerns, and the government is still struggling to assert its authority in the capital.

Interior Ministry spokesman Gen. Abdul Karim al-Kinani said the plan to dig a trench is part of the government's security plan to pacify Baghdad, which was initially launched in June. It will be deep and wide enough to prevent cars from crossing, forcing all vehicles to go through the 28 access roads leading into the capital, he said.

"This trench is going to have 28 entrances and is going to be under our forces' control in order to limit the terrorists' access to Baghdad," he said.

Berms have been used as a defensive measure in the past by the U.S. military, which threw one up around an entire village north of Baghdad last year and erected another along much of the Syrian border. U.S. officials say that berm has been successful in restricting the infiltration of foreign fighters into Iraq.

Saddam Hussein favored trenches. He ordered ordinary Iraqis to dig them in their backyards to defend against invading U.S. troops in 2003, and his security forces set fire to oil-filled trenches as the Americans approached.

It is unclear, however, whether any kind of barrier would help to significantly bring down the levels of violence in Baghdad. On a day when 51 bound and tortured bodies were found dumped on the city's streets, bringing to around 130 the number found in the past three days, Sunni leaders accused Shiite militias based inside the capital of carrying out the killings.