Attack on camp injures 35

BAGHDAD — Anti-American insurgents fired mortar rounds at a U.S. military camp last night, wounding 35 U.S. soldiers, U.S. military officials said.

The attack came on the same day that the U.S.-led civilian authority announced a major amnesty program for Iraqis detained during the war and the Bush administration revealed a major increase in funding for Iraqi political reform.

Six mortar rounds exploded about 6:45 p.m. at Logistical Base Seitz west of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said in a statement. The camp is located in the Sunni Triangle, a stronghold of resistance to the U.S. mission in Iraq.

“The wounded soldiers were given first aid and have been evacuated from the site for further medical treatment,” the statement said. The Pentagon added that the soldiers were from the Army’s 541st Maintenance Battalion, based in Fort Riley, Kan., and part of the 3rd Corps Support Command.

The mortars hit “a living area where they have their sleeping quarters,” the spokesman said.

A Pentagon spokesman said some of those wounded returned to duty shortly after the attack, while others were hospitalized. The spokesman, Lt. Col. James Cassella, said he did not know how many were seriously or lightly wounded.

Earlier yesterday, U.S. troops said they destroyed a home in Fallujah, the center of the anti-American insurgency west of Baghdad, where enraged neighbors said a married couple were killed and their five children were orphaned.

The neighbors insisted the couple were innocent in an attack on the troops that led them to shell the house, but the 82nd Airborne Division said its paratroopers acted after receiving “two rounds of indirect fire” a day earlier.

L. Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, formally announced in Baghdad that the U.S.-led civilian authority was freeing 506 of 12,800 prisoners in a goodwill gesture also aimed at encouraging more Iraqis to come forward with intelligence.

“It is time for reconciliation, time for Iraqis to make common cause,” Mr. Bremer told a news conference.

In a shift to meet a June 30 deadline for the transfer of power to Iraqis, the Bush administration informed Congress this week that it will quadruple to $458 million the spending on programs to help build a new government, develop political parties and prepare elections.

At the same time, the administration plans to scale back its spending plans for other programs in Iraq, from witness protection and public-safety training to firefighting.

In its most detailed spending blueprint to date, the administration informed congressional leaders that it intended to spend about $13 billion on reconstruction projects in Iraq this year and another $5.8 billion in fiscal 2005.