Iraq: Related developments

Ali Hassan al-Majid, the Saddam Hussein henchman known as "Chemical Ali" for gassing about 180,000 Kurdish civilians in the 1980s, will hang within the month. The agreement among Iraq's three-member presidency council -- President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, along with the Sunni and Shiite vice presidents -- eliminated the last barrier to the execution. They spared two other Saddam lieutenants -- Hussein Rashid Mohammed, former deputy director of operations for the armed forces, and ex-Defense Minister Sultan Hashim al-Taie -- in what was seen as an effort to appease Sunnis.

The State Department plans to reduce the number of auditors and investigators at its development agency in Baghdad. At present there are nine investigators and auditors in Iraq. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., ranking Republican on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, opposes the plan. He wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Friday asking why the changes were being made, saying the reductions could compromise the ability to ensure that billions of taxpayer dollars are spent wisely.

The applications of 551 Iraqi and Afghan translators seeking special visas to come to the United States will not be processed, the State Department said Friday, because the current legal quota of 500 visas for the program this year is about to be reached. It is the latest obstacle for many of the several thousand translators who have worked for U.S. military units, risking their lives and leaving their families vulnerable to retaliation from insurgents. More than 250 interpreters have been killed in Iraq.

Gunmen kidnapped a Chaldean Catholic archbishop in the northern city of Mosul, police and the church said, in another attack targeting Iraq's small Christian community. The gunmen killed three people who were with Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, 65, after he ended mass at a nearby church, said a spokesman for the Ninevah Province police. The Chaldean church is an Eastern-rite denomination that recognizes the primacy of the pope.