January 25, 2007
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- In the Vortex of Baghdad, Staying Put This Time
January 23, 2007
Johan Spanner for The New York Times
A young Iraqi detained by the Americans after a firefight was photographed and tested for explosivesIn the Vortex of Baghdad, Staying Put This Time
BAGHDAD, Jan. 22 — Two blocks from the new American outpost in Ghazaliya, one of Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhoods, a fight was raging. Shiites were battling Sunnis, the latest skirmish in a sectarian war that has left this area a wasteland.
On Friday morning, it became an American fight, too, after a few rounds whizzed by Sgt. Sergej Michaud’s head, and he and three other soldiers returned fire.
The battle would rage for nearly an hour, with mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades exploding near the soldiers, who in turn laid down heavy fire, eventually driving the attackers away.
Previously, that would have been the end of it, with the soldiers moving on to their next patrol area and eventually returning to their base. But this time, the Americans were staying, defending their new home in a neighborhood where the rule of law had been driven out by the reign of the gun.
Their outpost here, a cluster of fortified houses officially designated a joint security station and unofficially called the Alamo by some of the soldiers, is a test case for President Bush’s new Baghdad security plan. The strategy envisions at least 20 more facilities like it in other troubled neighborhoods, all jointly staffed by Iraqi and American forces.
Even after the stations are set up, American commanders say, it will be many months, at best, before they can even hope to prevent bombings like the one that killed at least 88 people in a central Baghdad market area on Monday.
In the week since the Americans arrived, however, the troops have seen the truth of what their commanders warned in announcing the plan: it leaves Americans more exposed than ever, stationary targets for warring militias.
The outpost sits on the fault line between Sunni and Shiite enclaves: Ghazaliya to the south, where fighters with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia have moved in among the Sunni population, and Shula to the north, a base for Shiite militias that have been raiding this neighborhood for months.
Over the course of three days spent with the 105 soldiers here — Company C of the Second Battalion, 12th Cavalry — four American vehicles were hit by roadside bombs near the outpost. No soldiers from Company C were wounded, but they know the fighting will intensify.
“I’m a juicy target they are just trying to figure out,” said Capt. Erik Peterson, 29, the commander at the outpost.
During the week, the soldiers also received their first glimpse of the green Iraqi forces who will share the mission and eventually, they hoped, take it over. The soldiers talked about them with a mixture of bemusement, disdain and mistrust.
“You could talk about partnership, but you would be lying,” said one soldier who asked that his name not be used, for fear of punishment by his superiors.
It was also a week to start getting to know the desperate residents of Ghazaliya, where almost every remaining family has lost someone to kidnappings and executions, and where government services have long been cut off.
In their new role, the Americans find themselves acting as jailers and doctors, construction workers and garbage men, guardians and detectives — all in an effort to restore lasting order despite the threats on every side.
Wednesday: First Test
After three days of grueling work on muddy and filthy ground, including installing blast walls around the perimeter, filling 5,000 sandbags and hauling away trash, the soldiers had the beginnings of a functioning base on Wednesday.
That night, they had their first real test. It was nearing midnight, the generator had failed, there was no heat, the radio was malfunctioning — and an Iraqi girl no more than 4 was dying in the bitter cold on an Army cot.
At the same time, a loud firefight erupted outside, apparently an attack on an Iraqi Army checkpoint nearby.
Captain Peterson had brought the sick child to the base because her family was afraid to travel after curfew and no Iraqi government ambulance would dare visit the neighborhood after dark, if at all.
One of the company’s medics, Cpl. Peter Callahan, 23, worked by flashlight, trying to soothe the girl, whose body was rejecting the medication her parents had given her.
“She needs to go to the hospital right now,” he told Captain Peterson. With no time to call in support, Captain Peterson quickly arranged a convoy to the nearest hospital — a risky proposition even in daylight and with more soldiers to provide security.
But the girl’s Sunni family resisted, fearing they would be killed at the hospital, which was in Shula, the Shiite district, if the Americans left them there.
Frustrated, Captain Peterson said over the radio, “I think they are pretty much willing to let this kid die instead of all dying together.”
The Americans decided to head to a safer hospital farther away. But time was running out; the girl’s pulse was dropping fast, dipping below 25.
Corporal Callahan gave her a small shot of atropine, which was all he had, to increase her heart rate. She stabilized, and when he emerged with the girl alive and breathing, he and her parents could barely contain their joy. He had saved her life.
Thursday: The Neighbors
After fortifying the outpost, the soldiers of Company C were ready for their first foray into the neighborhood. Most of them were familiar with the area, having conducted patrols here in armored Humvees for months, from a base near Baghdad’s airport.
The platoon leader, First Lt. Samuel Cartee, 25, reminded his men that this would be different. “They know where we are coming from,” he said.
It would be a short trip on foot, just two blocks north, circling back and checking out a local market area. The biggest threat was snipers.
“If we get shot at, and we know what house it is coming from, we are authorized to raid that house,” he said.
A few minutes after setting out, the soldiers passed a school that, like the other two in the area, was closed. Two months ago, American officers say, a teacher was raped, mutilated and strung up by her feet outside the building, left to hang for days.
It was unclear whether the killing was conducted by Shiites or Sunnis. But American officers said women were increasingly being attacked, especially by elements of Al Qaeda in the southern part of the neighborhood.
The soldiers soon came to an open area, and a shot rang out. A sniper.
They ran across the trash-strewn lot and took up battle positions, backs against a concrete wall, sun in their eyes. The shot came from about two blocks away — too far to pursue the shooter, who would be gone by the time they got there.
Later, two more snipers took shots, both far off the mark.
The Americans continued on, trudging through streets where rainwater had collected in pools and mixed with the open sewers.
Lieutenant Cartee passed out a flier announcing the presence of the station and inviting residents to call with information or problems. In this Sunni part of town, all the tips would point north, toward Shiite Shula. That fact was clearly painted in English on one wall the soldiers passed.
“Hey Americans, we want you to destroy the J.A.M.” It was a reference to the largest Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army. In smaller letters, someone had written an equally clear message: “Bush is appalling and dreadful.”
The soldiers made it to the market, and a crowd formed around them. But the soldiers were mostly unable to talk: interpreters are favored targets of snipers, so theirs had to stay in the armored Humvee that trailed behind.
The entire patrol lasted less than an hour. They had been shot at three times, handed out their new phone number to a few dozen people, seen several newly opened stores and made it back alive.
“Nice neighborhood,” Lieutenant Cartee said, deadpan.
That evening, a firefight began outside, close enough that tracer fire whizzed over the station. But the Americans did not seem to be the target, this night at least.
Friday: Troubling Thoughts
The first big fight for the Americans came the next morning — the battle that found Sergeant Michaud. When it was over, the Americans had killed two suspected militia members and taken two prisoner.
The suspects were young men, wearing black — the uniform of the Mahdi militia. The Americans blindfolded them and put them in separate rooms, where they were tested for residue from explosives and held for questioning.
As residents began arriving to offer information, a man who lived next to the new station, a Sunni and former police commander, loaded his family’s possessions into a pickup truck.
He was happy that the Americans were there, he said, but he was afraid that they would attract constant attacks, so he was moving to a different part of the neighborhood. As he packed up his family, he noticed a young boy loitering. The man became enraged, pointing two fingers at his eyes, then pointing at the boy, yelling, “Mahdi! Mahdi!”
The man explained that both the Mahdi Army and Al Qaeda were sending spies to see who was feeding the Americans information. The boy slipped away.
At the same time, Iraqi Army soldiers were starting to move into the outpost. They arrived in the late afternoon, one truck with a flat tire towing another truck that was not working.
Maj. Chasib Kattab, a boisterous Shiite who commands the Iraqi unit of two companies, about 200 men, started to provide information. But, in a likely hint of things to come, all his tips involved Sunni fighters. He had nothing to say about the Shiite militias.
He also seemed eager to fight. When he told the Americans about a car that was likely to be used as a bomb, he asked whether American helicopters would be able to destroy it. Told that, at night, they could make out the shape but not the color, Major Chasib seemed to think that was good enough. “They should just shoot it,” he said.
Captain Peterson had to explain that was not how things worked, aware that his partner’s decisions would affect how the Americans would be perceived.
Captain Peterson was under no illusions that establishing security and training the Iraqis to maintain it would be a difficult operation that could take time. He said he was initially skeptical about the plan, thinking the risks might be too great. But looking back over his experiences this fall patrolling the neighborhood, he said he had changed his mind.
One recent event in particular swayed him. When the Americans canceled their usual patrol on Jan. 3, Sunni extremists used the opportunity to bait militiamen by waging war on the small Shiite civilian population in Ghazaliya.
“They just went into the streets and started killing as many people as they could,” he said. Captain Peterson was at the main American base for western Baghdad, three miles away near the airport, and it took him nearly an hour to respond to pleas for help.
“It was such a helpless feeling for me,” he said.
Corporal Callahan, for his part, said that he was not sure he agrees with the war, and that he knew his wife, Stacie, thought it was terrible. But to get through it, he focuses on the people he can help, like the little Iraqi girl he saved.
“As long as I am here, I am going to try and make it worthwhile as far as the kids are concerned,” he said. “The adults, they are going to do what they are going to do.”
<CENTER>- 88 Killed as Car Bombs Devastate Market White House Hopes Maliki Can Soothe Concerns in Congress
88 Killed as Car Bombs Devastate Busy Baghdad Market
January 22, 2007
Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP — Getty Images
A pair of bombs killed at least 88 people in a crowded marketplace, sending smoke rising above Baghdad.88 Killed as Car Bombs Devastate Busy Baghdad Market
BAGHDAD, Jan. 22 — Two powerful car bombs ripped through a market in central Baghdad on Monday, turning an area crowded with shoppers and commuters into one of the worst scenes of carnage since the war began.
The bombs killed at least 88 people and wounded 160 others even as the first of some 21,000 extra American troops ordered by President Bush began arriving in Baghdad, and as other troops took up positions on SunniShiite fault lines as part of a new strategy to secure the city.
After a weekend in which 27 American soldiers were killed in Iraq, the attacks underscored the challenges that even an augmented American force faces in trying to quell the sectarian attacks. Military officials privately expressed concerns that a renewed period of intense sectarian fighting could easily overwhelm their efforts.
In addition to the market attacks, a bombing in a Shiite town north of Baghdad killed 15 people on Monday. Elsewhere, Iraqi government officials and members of security forces continued to be shot, blown up and kidnapped.
The blasts at the Baghdad market were in a Shiite area and seemed to have been timed to inflict maximum damage, occurring at noon, one of the busiest times of day. The explosions left so many bodies that they had to be loaded one on top of another on wooden carts, according to witnesses. Other victims were simply blown to pieces.
Ali Hussein 47, a biologist who was on his way home, said he had been knocked off his feet. The force of the blasts, which went off just seconds apart, turned everyday items like lotions and DVDs into deadly projectiles.
“Bottles of perfumes and deodorants were flying in the air like small rockets,” Mr. Hussein said outside Kindi Hospital, which was quickly overwhelmed with victims. “I was wounded in my right leg.”
Police officials said the blasts had been so large that each of the cars used must have carried a huge amount of explosives. From the eastern banks of the Tigris nearby, the two explosions could be heard in quick succession.
Massive clouds of smoke billowed high into the sky, and as the fires caused by the explosion engulfed at least a dozen cars, the cloud drifted over the heavily fortified Green Zone, about a half-mile away.
In the past such Sunni aggression has been met by swift reprisals by Shiites, a cycle of violence that left some 34,000 Iraqis dead last year. Monday’s bombings, directed so specifically at civilians, seemed intended to elicit a reprisal, much like the bombings in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City one day last fall, which killed 144 people.
Late Monday, a Sunni mosque in the Dora section of Baghdad was blown up. There were no reports of casualties. Residents said the attack was likely to have been retribution for the bombing of a Shiite mosque in the same neighborhood last week.
Elsewhere, the Sunni mayor of Baquba, Khalid al-Sanjari, was abducted Monday, and after armed gunmen took him way from his office they burned it to the ground, according to a local police official.
Residents in Baquba, about 25 miles northeast of Baghdad, said Mr. Sanjari had close ties with armed groups formerly affiliated with the Saddam Hussein government.
“It is strange that this man was kidnapped,” one resident said. “The Iraqi police and army have arrested him more than once, and he was released because of lack of evidence.”
Although it is far from clear who abducted the mayor, another resident said, “This is a punishment for him, because armed groups tend to get rid of the person who is no longer useful for them.”
Late Monday evening, just north of Baquba, at least 15 people were killed and 39 wounded in coordinated bomb and mortar attacks in the Shiite town of Khalis, according to a local police official.
In Tal Afar, the police were attacked in a bombing that left three dead and nine wounded. The town is considered to be one of the few success stories of the American occupation, a place where violence was largely quelled after intensive intervention. It is being used as the model for the new strategy to secure Baghdad.
Meanwhile, a group claiming to represent Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia took responsibility for shooting down an American Black Hawk helicopter northeast of Baghdad on Saturday. Local Iraqi officials at the site of the crash, which killed all 12 people on board, said the helicopter had been attacked, but American officials here said there an investigation was in progress and did not confirm those accounts.
Monday’s bombing in Baghdad was followed by prolonged gun battles. The fighting could be heard across the city, although officials did not release any casualty figures from the ensuing skirmishes.
At the site of the car bombings, the popular market in Bab al Sharji, next to the Museum of Modern Art, Iraqi Army troops spotted someone on a nearby rooftop shortly afterward filming the carnage.
They went after him as he tried to escape by jumping from rooftop to rooftop before he was shot dead, according to an Iraqi Army official. The official said the man was Egyptian and was filming the attack to use as propaganda for the Sunni insurgents.
The scene after the fact was all too familiar: charred human remains, pools of blood, unrecognizable body parts strewn among the used electronic equipment, CDs and vegetables.
Many of the shops on the square sell used goods at discount prices and are popular among working-class residents. Although the area is mainly Shiite, Sunnis often shop at the market, residents said.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki condemned the attack. “The violent terrorists who committed this crime have illusions that their bloody ideology to kill large numbers of civilians will break the will of the Iraqis and tear their unity and to raise sectarianism,” he said in a statement.
But on the streets of Baghdad, people said they had little hope for their country at the moment.
Outside the morgue, families lined up looking for loved ones. Bodies were lined up on the street, some covered in blue blankets. Near the dead there was a grim pile of arms and legs and other body parts.
Ahmad Fadam, Wisam A. Habeeb and Qais Mizher contributed reporting.
White House Hopes Maliki Can Soothe Concerns in Congress
Filed at 1:43 p.m. ET
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) – The White House expressed hope on Thursday that a vow by Iraqi’s prime minister to crack down on militants would help soothe concerns in the U.S. Congress after a key panel rebuffed President George W. Bush’s troop increase plan.
Bush spokesman Tony Snow said the administration welcomed what he called an “assertive” address by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Thursday, two days after the U.S. president implored Congress to give his Iraq strategy a chance.
Rebuffing Bush, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a non-binding resolution on Wednesday opposing his decision to send 21,500 more troops to fight in the increasingly unpopular war.
Maliki pledged to parliament to leave militants, Shi’ite and Sunni alike, nowhere to hide in Baghdad, where sectarian violence has added to Americans’ doubts about his Shi’ite-dominated government’s commitment to reconciliation.
Snow said Maliki also addressed “two hugely important political benchmarks” by telling Iraqi lawmakers he wanted them to pass a hydrocarbons law and de-Baathification reform in the current session.
“A very assertive address on the part of the prime minister,” Snow told reporters aboard Air Force One traveling with Bush to Missouri. “We certainly welcome that because it demonstrates the kind of vigor that we’ve been talking about and that the American people expect.”
“And (it) also responds specifically to concerns members of Congress have been expressing in terms of the aims and the determination of the government of Iraq,” he added.
Snow said there were “no real surprises” in the Senate panel’s vote on the Iraq resolution, and pointed out that Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel was the only Republican to vote for it. The measure now goes to the full Senate for a vote expected as soon as next week.
In the closely divided Senate, lawmakers were struggling to find compromise language that a majority could support. Some Republicans criticized as too partisan Wednesday’s resolution that deemed a troop increase against the “national interest.”
Bush has made clear he will not abide by any resolution opposing the troop build-up, and Vice President Dick Cheney said in a CNN interview “it won’t stop us.”
But a bipartisan vote would carry strong symbolism for a U.S. public weary of a war that has claimed more than 3,000 American lives and killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.
Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said it was ”delusional” for Cheney to suggest, as he did to CNN, that the administration had achieved “enormous successes” in Iraq.
Despite that, Democratic leaders have stopped short of threatening to cut off funding for the troop build-up, mindful that would allow Bush and his allies to accuse them of abandoning the troops as the 2008 presidential race gears up.
- At the Libby Trial, Hints of Intrigue and Betrayal
Left, Ron Edmonds/Associated Press; right, Jonathan Ernst/ReutersI. Lewis Libby Jr., far right, asserts that he was the scapegoat for a leak involving Karl Rove, above, the senior political adviser to President Bush.
At the Libby Trial, Hints of Intrigue and Betrayal
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 — The assertion by lawyers for I. Lewis Libby Jr. that White House aides had sacrificed him to protect Karl Rove, the senior political adviser, appears to be based primarily on Mr. Libby’s own sense that the administration had failed to defend him adequately as the C.I.A. leak case unfolded.
But there is little known evidence to buttress the suggestion by Mr. Libby’s defense team in his obstruction and perjury trial that unnamed White House officials were deliberately setting Mr. Libby up to be a scapegoat.
Mr. Libby’s lawyers said in an opening statement on Tuesday that he felt so abandoned by the White House as the leak investigation intensified in the fall of 2003 that he appealed to his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney subsequently wrote, according to the defense’s opening statement: “Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy who was asked to stick his neck in the meatgrinder because of the incompetence of others.”
The defense team’s statements set off a debate across Washington about whether they were part of a legal gambit to divert attention from the underlying charge that Mr. Libby lied to F.B.I. agents and the grand jury or whether his lawyers had evidence of an effort within the White House to focus the blame on Mr. Libby.
Even if the assertion is shown to be true, it is not clear how it would help refute the charges that Mr. Libby had perjured himself.
Mr. Libby’s lawyers have so far offered few details about how he might have been set up as a fall guy for Mr. Rove. White House aides said little about the alleged rift on Wednesday, indicating they were prepared to grant their former colleague wide latitude to present an aggressive defense — even if it meant letting stand unanswered a story of intrigue and disloyalty involving President Bush’s and Mr. Cheney’s most trusted aides.
The accusations of scapegoating came as a surprise. In the past, White House aides have portrayed Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove as colleagues who moved in different orbits, but whose paths crossed collegially on various pieces of White House business, including the effort to defend a flawed statement in Mr. Bush’s State of the Union speech in 2003 that Iraq had sought nuclear fuel in Africa.
But Mr. Libby may have had reason to feel singled out. He was the only White House official known to have been authorized to seek out reporters in the summer of 2003 in an effort to explain an intelligence report that the administration had used to make a case that Iraq was interested in acquiring uranium ore for its suspected nuclear program, according to documents in the case.
Mr. Cheney approved of Mr. Libby’s confidential meetings with reporters, according to the prosecution. The vice president had also spoken to Mr. Bush, who authorized the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to provide Mr. Libby with more information to discuss with the journalists, the legal papers said.
There may have been other reasons Mr. Libby felt the White House was turning against him. Under questioning from reporters, Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said on Sept. 29, 2003, that Mr. Rove had no involvement in the leak of the identity of an intelligence officer, Valerie Wilson. But it took nearly a week before Mr. McClellan made a similar defense of Mr. Libby.
In each instance, Mr. McClellan’s statements, which he said at the time were based upon conversations with Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby, proved to be inaccurate; Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove had spoken to reporters about Ms. Wilson, who had worked undercover.
While Mr. Libby felt he was being left to fend for himself, there is little public evidence so far to support his lawyers’ suggestion that Mr. Libby was the victim of a deliberate effort to shift the blame to Mr. Libby to protect Mr. Rove, who by the fall of 2003 was masterminding Mr. Bush’s reelection campaign.
The issue of whether there was a conspiracy at the White House either to reveal Ms. Wilson’s identity or to cover up for the White House officials who engaged in such a plot was a central focus of the grand jury inquiry conducted by Patrick J. Ftizgerald, the prosecutor. Mr. Fitzgerald did not charge anyone with participating in a conspiracy and has never suggested that there is any evidence that one existed.
Mr. Fitzgerald spent many months exploring the issue, investigating one newspaper report of a broad conspiracy that later proved to be inaccurate, according to lawyers with clients in the case. Those lawyers said Mr. Fitzgerald questioned their clients, often in minute detail, about what they had done or said about the case. Associates of Mr. Rove, speaking on condition of anonymity, dismissed the idea that there was a cabal against Mr. Libby.
But the defense can marshal an argument that Mr. Libby was initially left out in the cold as the White House began mounting a defense of Mr. Rove, a review of White House comments on the leak inquiry shows.
On Sept. 29, 2003, as the leak inquiry was picking up steam and reporters were pressing to learn Mr. Rove’s role, Mr. McClellan said Mr. Rove had told him he was not involved in the leak. He called the accusations of Mr. Rove’s involvement “ridiculous.”
Asked about Mr. Libby in that afternoon’s press briefing, Mr. McClellan initially appeared noncommittal, saying, “If someone did something like this, it needs to be looked at by the Department of Justice.” Later in the briefing Mr. McClellan said, “I’ve made it clear that there’s been nothing, absolutely nothing, brought to our attention to suggest any White House involvement, and that includes the vice president’s office, as well.”
But a government filing in the spring suggested that Mr. Libby was dissatisfied with Mr. McClellan’s handling of the questions about his involvement. The filing showed that Mr. Libby had drafted a handwritten list of talking points for Mr. McClellan that read: “People have made too much of the difference in how I described Karl and Libby. I’ve talked to Libby. I said it was ridiculous about Karl, and it is ridiculous about Libby.”
Mr. McClellan indicated at the time his comments defending Mr. Libby had come from a conversation.
Former White House officials said they were surprised to hear of any rift between Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby. “One of their strengths was that they worked together,” said Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a former State Department official who has become a critic of how the administration had handled Iraq. “They didn’t show any ankle — it was always a team effort.”
Several former officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby had several areas of intersection. Mr. Libby also held the rank of a presidential adviser, and he stood in for Mr. Cheney frequently on domestic and foreign policy meetings. Both men had a hand in the marketing, and later, the defense, of the Iraq strategy. But they approached it from different angles. Mr. Libby was deeply involved in developing and assessing intelligence about Iraq and using it to build the case for the war, and then defending that case as it began to unravel. Mr. Rove built a re-election strategy for Mr. Bush that relied heavily on his prosecution of the war against terrorism and the Iraq invasion.
Both men had their own contacts among journalists. Mr. Rove dealt mostly with political reporters, including the conservative columnist Robert Novak, who first disclosed Ms. Wilson’s identity. Mr. Libby tended to speak with reporters who focused on national security matters, including Judith Miller, then of The New York Times.
Mr. Fitzgerald has also introduced a new player into the mix, Ari Fleischer, Mr. McClellan’s predecessor as White House press secretary. Mr. Fleischer, Mr. Fitzgerald said in court on Tuesday, had been informed by Mr. Libby about Ms. Wilson’s identity as the wife of Joseph C. Wilson, the former diplomat whose criticism of pre-war intelligence about Iraq had set off the case. Mr. Fleischer had later discussed Ms. Wilson with reporters including David Gregory of NBC News, according to the account.
Theodore V. Wells Jr., Mr. Libby’s lawyer, has argued that Mr. Fleischer’s testimony came after an immunity deal and that he had no notes about the lunch he reportedly had with Mr. Libby. But that argument fits what appears to be a general strategy by Mr. Wells to show a confusing situation where loyalties, and memories, are questionable.
Sarah Abruzzese contributed reporting from Washington.
- Williams Reaches Finals in Australia
Rob Griffith/Associated PressSerena Williams, a two-time Australian Open champion but unseeded this year, beat Nicole Vaidisova in straight sets in the
Australian OpenWilliams Reaches Finals in Australia
MELBOURNE, Australia, Thursday, Jan. 25 — After two years of waiting and not much playing, Serena Williams is back in a final, and it happens to be in a Grand Slam tournament.
Williams continued the most surprising run of her career today by defeating the 17-year-old Czech Nicole Vaidisova, 7-6 (5), 6-4, in the semifinals of the Australian Open, which she won in 2003 and 2005.
To win again, she will have to defeat the top-seeded Maria Sharapova, who advanced to the final by breaking open a tight match with Kim Clijsters midway through the first set to win, 6-4, 6-2.
In 2003, Williams was the overwhelming favorite, having won the three previous Grand Slam tournaments, and in 2005 she was still on the short list of contenders. But this year she was a true outsider, arriving here with a world ranking of 81, having played just five tournaments in the last year.
Now, after beating five seeded players, including the 10th-seeded Vaidisova, she has put herself back at the center of the sport and guaranteed herself a place in the top 20.
“I can’t believe it; that’s awesome,” said Williams, whooping it up on court in her postmatch interview. “That was so fast.”
Speedy indeed, but it took her more time than she would have liked to close out the powerful but erratic Vaidisova, a 6-foot blonde who left Europe to train at Nick Bollettieri’s Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Fla., as a youngster, occasionally sneaking peeks at Williams’s training sessions there.
Down by 1-5 in the second set, Vaidisova closed the gap to 4-5, saving five match points, before Williams finally closed out the 1-hour, 46-minute victory with a forehand volley winner.
Sharapova finished off her victory with a fine forehand passing shot down the line and then threw both her long arms in the air and leaned back. At 19, she has already won Wimbledon and last year’s United States Open, but this will be her first Australian Open final, and she would already have contested one if she had managed to convert on any of her three match points against Williams in the semifinals in 2005. They have not played each other since and have split their four matches overall.
“She came into this tournament without any expectations, and she’s playing some great tennis,” Sharapova said. “I’m looking forward to my rematch.”
Thursday’s semifinal could be the last Australian Open match for Clijsters, who, though still just 23, has announced that she will retire from the game at the end of this season. Clijsters was given the nickname “Aussie Kim” here when she was dating Australian star Lleyton Hewitt. But even though she and Hewitt eventually split, and she is now engaged to American basketball player Brian Lynch, she has remained a popular figure here, as indicated by the standing ovation she received before she left the court.
“Sorry I couldn’t come up with a better match today,” said Clijsters, who said she would return as a spectator. “In a few years, I’ll be sitting in the stands, maybe with some kids.”
As Williams walked through the corridors of Rod Laver Arena, minutes before walking on court, she saw her agent, Jill Smoller, who greeted her by clenching her fists and striking a muscle-beach pose and then giving her a roundhouse smack on the rear.
It was a sign of what makes Williams tick. This surprising run in Melbourne has been much more about desire than thorough preparation, much more about muscle memory and competitiveness than hard-won fitness.
Once on court against Vaidisova, it took time for Williams to bare her teeth. Despite the power being produced on both ends of the court, the pace was slow, almost reflective between the points, and the early games were long.
Vaidisova’s game plan was clear early: attack Williams’s second serves and try to move her — not just side to side but back to front with the occasional drop shot. At the start, Vaidisova applied these principles well, breaking Williams’s serve in the opening game after two deuces and then holding her own serve to go up, 2-0.
But Williams, who looked sluggish at times early, began moving and serving more convincingly — she would finish with 10 aces — and adjusting to Vaidisova’s big returns.
Vaidisova, taking huge risks, began to produce more errors than winners with her forehand, with its huge backswing and relatively low margin for error. Williams broke her in the sixth game to get back on serve, but Vaidisova would still get her chance to win the set when she broke Williams again to go up, 5-4, and then served for the lead.
After saving a break point with an ace to get to deuce, she failed to put another first serve into play in the game, as Williams saved a set point with a big forehand that Vaidisova could not handle. It was soon 5-5 and then 6-6, with Williams jumping out to a 5-1 lead in the tie breaker and then holding on to win the set after Vaidisova rallied to 5-5, with Williams serving consecutive double faults at 5-2..
Vaidisova’s pride and power in the tie breaker was foreshadowing for the second set when, apparently out of contention, she roared back, saving four match points on her serve at 3-5 and another on Williams’s serve at 4-5 before she closed it out.
“Almost did a gagarooni there,” Williams said. “Basically that means gagging. But she played some incredible points on match points, just got relaxed. She reminded me a little bit of myself.”
- Plain Cellphones Can Overachieve, With a Little Help
Illustration by Alex Eben MeyerBasicsPlain Cellphones Can Overachieve, With a Little Help
IF you have an ordinary cellphone — the type that you got free, or cheaply, when you signed up for service — you might envy those with phones that are also personal digital assistants, like BlackBerrys, Treos, Sidekicks and Windows smartphones.
Those devices, typically costing $200 to $400, let you do more than just make phone calls and take pictures. They are pocket-size computers equipped for many functions, including e-mail, Web browsing and contact management, note taking, financial recordkeeping and a calendar.
But as it turns out, that humble cellphone in your pocket may be able to do all this and more, depending on its built-in features and the available add-on software.
The screen may be a bit smaller than on a palmtop, and you will lack an alphanumeric keyboard, making typing a lot harder — but as anyone who has sent text messages or entered names into their phone’s address book knows, you can peck out letters using the numeric keypad.
Cellphone manufacturers, carriers and independent application providers are now offering lots of programs and services that can be used on a wide number of phones. Not all services work on all phones. Some are carrier-specific, and some work only on certain phones.
Many require that the phone be able to handle programs written in Java (most new ones are). Some services are free; others charge a monthly fee.
There are a variety of ways to get these applications, and you probably already have some. In addition to Bluetooth and a camera, the Nokia 6102i, effectively free after a rebate from Cingular Wireless, comes with software applications including an audio recorder, an alarm clock, a calendar, a to-do list, a note taker, a calculator, a countdown timer and a stopwatch. It also has AOL, Yahoo, ICQ and MSN instant messengers, a text messaging program, an FM radio, e-mail and, of course, an Internet browser.
And all of this is before you download any applications over the wireless network from the Cingular Mall, where you can buy games, ring tones, graphics and other applications.
Sprint‘s Samsung M500, available for as little as $9.99 after rebate, has a comparable list of built-in features, along with a dictionary and the ability to store files and play music. Like more expensive hand-helds, it comes with a U.S.B. cable to sync with a PC and a 64-megabyte microSD card (for about $30 you can buy a one-gigabyte card) to store MP3 files that you can play on the phone.
It can even display an analog clock, but the real power of this and many other phones is the applications you can buy and download.
Some of the productivity programs that can be downloaded from Sprint are RandMcNally StreetFinder, MapQuest Mobile, Vindigo City Guide, Zagat restaurant guide and FlyteSource Mobile, which gives real-time flight status. These or similar services are also available on phones from other carriers.
All cellular carriers offer some type of e-mail service, sometimes for an extra fee. But consumers have choices. In addition to the carrier’s services, there are free third-party services you can use, including Yahoo Mail, Gmail and Flurry.
Before using any of these services or downloading any applications, check to see what, if anything, it will cost. Even if the application is free, there may be data or air-time charges from your carrier, and there may be plans that can reduce those charges.
Flurry, a free service that works with several carriers, is both an e-mail application and an R.S.S. (for Really Simple Syndication) news reader, which you can use to subscribe to frequently updated content. You start by visiting www.flurry.com from your PC and entering your cellphone number, carrier name, e-mail address and password, and any R.S.S. feeds you wish to subscribe to. The service then sends a text message to your phone with a link for downloading the program.
The service works with most publicly available e-mail accounts, the company’s chief executive, Sean Byrnes, said. It can also import up to 430 contacts from Outlook, Gmail and any other program or service that can export standard comma separated values, or CSV, files. You can also dial a phone number from that contact list.
Google recently started offering a free cellphone version of its popular Gmail service. If you have signed up for a Gmail account, you can download the application by pointing your cellphone browser to gmail.com/app. You enter your Gmail user name and password, and a few minutes later you are reading your mail. You can also compose and respond to mail and bring up your Gmail contact list.
Yahoo is conducting a public beta test of its free Go 2.0 service, which has numerous applications, including a phone-centric Internet search tool. You tell it where you are (a satellite-based locator will be available later) and it can find nearby restaurants, movie show times, stores and services and display a map to your destination. Because it is a downloaded application (at mobile.yahoo.com), it is faster than using a Web page, but it can also link you to Web pages through your phone’s browser.
Yahoo Go also gives you access to Yahoo e-mail synchronized with your Web account. Mail is searchable, and you can display JPEG graphic files. You can track your stock portfolio, follow sports teams and get weather reports. You can also connect to a Flickr photo account to see or share photos from the road. Yahoo Go works with a limited number of phones from Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, Alltel, Telus and Rogers.
You’re not going to find Microsoft Outlook on a run-of-the-mill cellphone. But with SoonR, a free application (at www.soonr.com) that runs in your cellphone’s browser, you can use your phone to gain access to data from Outlook and other programs running on a PC or Mac.
You can view thumbnails of Word and Excel files, and Windows users can read, respond, compose and send Outlook e-mail. You can make calls from your Outlook contact list and consult and update Outlook’s calendar. The files and programs are not on the phone — you are using the phone for remote access to your home or office computer, and any changes you make on the phone show up on the PC.
You can remotely use most popular PC and Mac desktop search programs and forward files through your computer’s broadband connection. You can even run the Internet phone service Skype on your PC from your cellphone.
Many of today’s phones make use of the satellite-based Global Positioning System, mainly to help responders find you in an emergency, but the technology can also be tapped for location-based services, like turning your phone into a portable navigation device with turn-by-turn maps and audible directions through the phone’s speaker.
I test-drove both the TeleNav service, which works with select phones from most carriers, and Verizon’s VZ Navigator. Both are $10 a month. VZ Navigator can also be bought for $2.99 a day. Both use the phone network to provide directions, maps and points of interest that are updated on an ongoing basis. They have a “points of interest” database with millions of listings. TeleNav also has a “gas by price” feature that taps into an online database of gas station prices to lead you to the cheapest gas in your area.
So instead of lusting over that palmtop or Apple‘s highly anticipated iPhone, reach into your pocket and see what that phone of yours has to offer. You might just be carrying around a poor man’s BlackBerry — minus the keyboard.
