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CARLETONVILLE, South Africa (AP) — More than 2,000 trapped gold miners in South Africa were rescued in a dramatic all-night operation, and efforts gathered speed Thursday to bring hundreds more to the surface.

There were no casualties when a pressurized air pipe snapped at the mine near Johannesburg and tumbled down a shaft Wednesday, causing extensive damage to an elevator and stranding more than 3,000 miners more than a mile underground.

The mine owner and South Africa’s minerals and energy minister vowed to improve safety in one of the country’s most important industries.

Earlier hopes that all the miners would be rescued by lunchtime faded and company officials said it would more likely be early evening.

”We nearly died down there,” one man yelled as he walked past reporters. ”I’d rather leave (the job) than die in the mine.”

The trapped workers were bringing brought to the surface in a second, smaller cage in another shaft. Most of the miners who emerged into the blinding sunlight looked dazed and exhausted, but there were no signs of injury — although one apparently dehydrated man rode away in an ambulance.

One large group emerged from the shaft singing traditional songs and stamping their feet with joy despite their exhaustion. They were greeted by a crowd of ululating women miners.

The hundreds of workers who remained underground were all near a ventilation shaft and had been given water — although no food for fear of provoking a scramble among hungry miners, according to Peter Bailey, health and safety chairman for the National Mineworkers Union.

The accident prompted allegations of the industry cutting safety corners in the name of profit — and accusations from the government that mine owner Harmony Gold Mining Co. did not bother to inform it of the potentially devastating crisis.

Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica complained that she learned about the early morning accident from the late evening news. She said President Thabo Mbeki also found out from the news bulletin.

Sonjica said during a visit to the Elandsrand mine at Carletonville — a town in South Africa’s mining heartland near Johannesburg — that health and safety legislation would be ”tightened up.”

Last year, 199 mineworkers died in accidents, mostly rock falls, the government’s Mine Health and Safety Council reported in September. One worker was killed last week in a mine adjacent to Elandsrand.

”We have to recommit ourselves to refocus on safety in this country; our safety record both as a company and an industry leave much to be desired,” Harmony Gold Mining Co. chairman Patrice Motsepe said according to the South African Press Association, as union officials accused the industry of taking short cuts on safety in the interest of profit.

Harmony’s per-share price on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange dropped almost 5 percent Friday morning, but later recovered and was at $10.99 Thursday afternoon, only slightly off the previous day. JPMorgan analyst Allan Cooke said the accident would hurt Harmony’s earnings, especially if the shaft remains closed for the entire quarter.

As rescuers slowly brought the miners to the surface Thursday, family members stood outside the mine offices, complaining that they had not been given enough information about their loved ones.

”I am very traumatized, exhausted, not knowing what is going on,” said Sam Ramohanoe, whose wife, Flora, 31, was among the trapped. ”It is very unfair to us, not knowing what is going one with our beloved ones.”

Sethiri Thibile, who was in the first batch of miners rescued about 19 hours after the accident, held a cold beef sandwich and a bottle of water he was given when he reached the surface.

”I was hungry, though we were all hungry,” said Thibile, 32, an engineering assistant who had been underground since early Wednesday morning. He said there was no food or water in the mine.

”Most of the people are scared and we also have some women miners there underground,” said Thibile.

Deon Boqwana, regional chairman for the union, said officials were in contact with the miners below ground by a telephone line. Boqwana said the smaller cage being used to bring miners out can hold about 75 miners at a time. He said it normally takes three minutes to reach the surface but would be slower because rescuers were being careful.

A spokesman for the union, Lesiba Seshoka, said that the mine was not properly maintained.

”Our guys there tell us that they have raised concerns about the whole issue of maintenance of shafts with the mine (managers) but they have not been attended to,” he said.

Company spokeswoman Amelia Soares said the mine had won a number of safety awards and had never seen any fatal accidents. She said the company was likely to suffer considerable loss in output during the closure, but was unable to give a precise estimate, saying that attention for now was concentrated on the rescue operation.

Senzeni Zokwana, the president of the National Mineworkers Union, said the accident should be a wake-up call for the industry.

”We are very much concerned. We believe that this should be a call to the industry that secondary exits underground be mandated,” said Zokwana.

Motsepe said he had been in the mining business since the 1980s and could not remember an another incident in which so many miners had been trapped underground.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: October 4, 2007

BAGHDAD (AP) — The Polish ambassador to Iraq was slightly wounded and two civilians, including a bodyguard, were killed in a roadside bomb attack Wednesday in downtown Baghdad, according to Polish government officials.

Gen. Edward Pietrzyk was being treated for minor burns covering 20 percent of his body and ”is going to be fine,” said Deputy Ambassador Waldemar Figaj, who spoke to The Associated Press from a hospital in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Pietrzyk was to be flown home to Poland by way of German later in the day.

A civilian passer-by died after at least two roadside bombs were detonated around 10 a.m., an Iraqi police official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. A Polish security guard, Bartosz Orzechowski, 29, died at the hospital a short time later, Poland’s Interior Minister Wladyslaw Stasiak said during a news conference.

At least 11 people, including three security guards with the convoy, were also wounded in the attack in the Karradah neighborhood, police said. The guards worked for Poland’s Government Protection Office, which is responsible for the security of Polish officials in Iraq, said Dariusz Aleksandrowicz, the agency’s spokesman.

The attack, which took place a few hundred yards from the Polish Embassy, seemed to target the ambassador. said Robert Szaniawski, a spokesman for the Polish Foreign Ministry.

”We still don’t have the reasons for the attack,” he said, adding that the embassy is not in the heavily fortified Green Zone.

Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said the attack would not weaken his countrymen’s resolve to fight terrorism in Iraq.

”Backing out before terrorists is the worst possible solution and I trust that the Poles, who are a brave nation, will not desert the battlefield,” he said. ”We must fight terrorism and that entails a certain risk.”

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States was shocked by the attack.

”Poland is a good friend and a good ally and we appreciate the fact — the Iraqis appreciate the fact — that they have such high-level diplomatic representation in Baghdad,” McCormack said. ”We are going to do what we can to help out.”

Poland contributed combat troops to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, and has since led a multinational division south of Baghdad. About 900 Polish troops are stationed there training Iraqi personnel; 21 have died in the war.

Last year, the Polish government extended its mission in Iraq until the end of 2007, leaving a decision on further extensions for later this year.

”Poland has been a strong and steadfast ally here and around the world, and we commend its commitment to a stable and secure Iraq,” said a brief statement issued by U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and the U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, condemning the attack. ”We stand ready to provide any additional assistance we can.”

U.S. officials said Blackwater USA, a Moyock, N.C.-based security firm, flew the ambassador to the Green Zone for treatment.

The company is under investigation for the role its personnel played in a Sept. 16 shootout that left 11 Iraqis dead in Baghdad. The incident prompted the Iraqi Interior Ministry to order the company out of the country, but Blackwater guards were back on duty less than a week later.

Blackwater has an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq, and at least $800 million in government contracts.

U.S. authorities confiscated an AP Television News videotape that contained scenes of the wounded being evacuated. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl told AP the government of Iraq had made it illegal to photograph or videotape the aftermath of bombings or other attacks.

Pietrzyk, 57, who was formerly commander of land forces in Poland, was appointed ambassador to Iraq in April, Szaniawski said. He studied in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, and spent two years at the National Defense University in Washington. He then served as commander of Polish land forces from 2000 until 2006.

——

Associated Press writers Katarina Kratovac in Baghdad and Monika Scislowska and Ryan Lucas in Warsaw, Poland, contributed to this report.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: October 3, 2007

BEITUNIYA CHECKPOINT, West Bank (AP) — Dozens of freed Palestinian prisoners kissed the ground at this West Bank checkpoint after Israel released them in a gesture to President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of a U.S.-sponsored Mideast peace conference.As the 57 prisoners headed home, Israel said it was moving forward with plans to open a new West Bank police headquarters, despite U.S. concerns that development in the area harms prospects for establishing a viable Palestinian state. The Palestinians accused Israel of undermining new peace efforts.

The prisoners arrived at the army’s Beituniya checkpoint, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, after a two-hour journey from the Ketziot prison in southern Israel.

They got off Israeli buses, kissed the asphalt, and then boarded a Palestinian bus. An ecstatic crowd of waiting relatives clapped and waved Palestinian flags.

Israel was expected to free 30 other prisoners in the Gaza Strip on Monday, but the release was delayed without explanation.

Most of the prisoners slated for release Monday are from the West Bank, which is controlled by Abbas and his government of moderates. The others are residents of Gaza, which has been ruled by Hamas since June, when they defeated the forces of Abbas’ Fatah movement and took control of the coastal territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced the release — the second since July — as part of his strategy to support Abbas in his power struggle with Hamas. The prisoners are mostly members of Fatah, along with several who belong to smaller Palestinian factions. None belong to Hamas.

Israel is holding around 11,000 Palestinian prisoners, and their release is a central Palestinian demand. While many of those freed Monday were serving time for militant activity, none was convicted of killing or injuring Israelis.

Among those released was 66-year-old Rakad Salim, who served five years of an eight-year sentence for distributing millions of dollars from the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to Palestinian militants and their families. His relatives and supporters held up pictures of Saddam and kissed and hugged him after he got off the bus.

”I feel that I am a new man, enjoying my freedom,” said a smiling Salim. ”This release is not enough, but we hope it is the beginning of emptying all the (Israeli) prisons.”

The prisoners later traveled to a security compound in Ramallah, where they laid a wreath at the tomb of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

In Gaza, Israeli troops shot and wounded a 14-year-old who was waiting with hundreds of Palestinians at the Erez crossing for their relatives to be released, medics and witnesses said.

The Israeli troops began firing from watchtowers when the Palestinians began approaching a no man’s zone separating Gaza from Israel, the witnesses said. The military said troops opened fire at Palestinians who approached army positions at Erez and ignored warning shots.

Hamas called Monday’s prisoner release insignificant.

”We congratulate the prisoners,” said Mohammed al-Mudhoun a senior aid to Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Hamas government in Gaza. ”We consider this … a humiliation for the leadership in Ramallah that considers this humble number a great achievement.”

Palestinians with relatives in Israeli prisons gathered at the Red Cross offices in Gaza City, holding photographs of their loved ones.

One mother, Fatima Kaisi, said her 24-year-old son, Mohammed, is serving a 250-year sentence for involvement in the radical militant group Islamic Jihad.

”I’m happy for the mothers who are getting their sons back today, but the leaders have to know that there are hundreds of mothers and families still waiting to meet with their loved ones,” Kaisi said.

Israeli troops killed two Hamas militants in Gaza on Monday in a gunbattle, Hamas said. The Israeli military said troops shot two armed Palestinian militants who attacked soldiers just inside Gaza. One soldier was slightly wounded by gunfire, the military said.

Olmert and Abbas are slated to meet Wednesday. The two leaders are trying to draft a joint vision of a peace deal to be presented at a peace conference expected to be held in November in Annapolis, Md.

The Palestinians want a detailed framework agreement, while Israel wants a statement that is shorter and more vague.

But even with peace efforts gaining speed, Israeli officials said they were determined to open the new West Bank police headquarters in an area just east of Jerusalem known as E-1.

The U.S. has blocked past Israeli efforts to develop the five-square-mile area. Plans envision 3,500 homes, hotels and an industrial park.

The E-1 project, if completed, would effectively cut off eastern Jerusalem, the Palestinians’ hoped-for capital, from the West Bank hinterland. Palestinians and Israeli human rights groups accuse Israel of trying to consolidate control over West Bank land east of Jerusalem, with the help of a separation barrier and new highways.

Israel’s public security minister, Avi Dichter, told the Haaretz daily that police officers would move to the new building by the end of 2007. Haaretz quoted Dichter as saying Israel was not seeking U.S. consent.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat warned that Israel is undermining fledgling peace efforts.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25 — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, said Tuesday that he considered the dispute over his country’s nuclear program “closed” and that Iran would disregard the resolutions of the Security Council, which he said was dominated by “arrogant powers.”

In a rambling and defiant 40-minute speech to the opening session of the General Assembly, he said Iran would from now on consider the nuclear issue not a “political” one for the Security Council, but a “technical” one to be decided by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s assertion that the matter belonged with the nuclear agency indicated his preference to work with Mohamed ElBaradei, its director.

Dr. ElBaradei has been at odds with Washington, and some European powers, who have accused him of meddling in the diplomacy by seeking separate accords with Iran, and in their eyes undercutting the Security Council resolutions.

“Today because of the resistance of the Iranian nation, the issue is back to the agency, and I officially announce that in our opinion, the nuclear issue of Iran is now closed and has turned into an ordinary agency matter,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said. A senior Bush administration official said after the address that the only person who thought that the issue was closed was Mr. Ahmadinejad.

As the Iranian president moved to speak, the United States delegation left, leaving only a note-taker to listen to the speech, which occurred just hours after President Bush had spoken from the same podium about the need for nations to live up to the rights guaranteed by the United Nations.

In a barely disguised barb, Mr. Ahmadinejad asserted, “Unfortunately human rights are being extensively violated by certain powers, especially by those who pretend to be their exclusive advocates.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s declaration that the nuclear issue was closed comes just as the Bush administration is seeking to turn up the pressure on the country, both through the United Nations Security Council and in concert with European powers.

“In the last two years,” the Iranian president said, “abusing the Security Council, the arrogant powers have repeatedly accused Iran and even made military threats and imposed illegal sanctions against it.”

In recent weeks, American and French officials have described an emerging strategy of broadening the number of banks, mostly in Europe, that have refused to lend new capital to Iran, making it difficult for the country to invest in new oil facilities or other infrastructure.

“We want more banks, and now suppliers, to assess the risk” of dealing with Iran, Stephen J. Hadley, President Bush’s national security adviser, said in a meeting on Tuesday with editors and reporters of The New York Times.

The issue now, he said, is “at what point the regime, or elements of the regime, say ‘this policy is taking us into a ditch.’”

Administration officials insist that despite Mr. Ahmadinejad’s high profile in New York this week, he is being marginalized at home. If true, it makes it hard to assess whether he was speaking for the rest of the Iranian leadership with his declaration.

Only last month, Iran’s leaders reached an agreement with Dr. ElBaradei to answer questions that nuclear inspectors have been raising for years about possible connections between Iran’s nuclear program and military projects. Inspectors are in Iran this week, seeking further answers to questions that Iran has refused to discuss.

But even if Iran answers all the outstanding questions, it could still be in violation of the Security Council resolutions. Those resolutions call on the country to cease enriching uranium.

The enrichment has continued, though not yet on a scale large enough to produce a bomb’s worth of material in the near future. Mr. Hadley refused to speculate on how much time the United States and its allies had to stop the program before Iran had enough material to manufacture a weapon.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, as he has in the past, argued that Iran’s nuclear program was solely for civilian purposes and fell within the legal requirements of the atomic energy agency.

The Security Council powers believe that Iran’s real purpose is to build nuclear weapons, and it has backed up that conviction with two resolutions and economic sanctions against the Tehran government.

Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, the permanent members of the Security Council, have been holding meetings in various capitals this fall to see if sterner measures are needed to gain compliance.

France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, told the General Assembly in a speech earlier Tuesday that allowing Iran to build a bomb would be an “unacceptable risk to stability in the region and in the world.”

He said the Security Council should not relax its guard while it continued to negotiate with Tehran. “Firmness and dialogue go hand in hand,” he said. “And I weigh my words carefully.”

To that, Mr. Ahmadinejad had his own reply. “The decisions by the United States and France are not important,” he said during his address. “What is important is that our nuclear program is within the rules of the I.A.E.A. and our program as such will continue.”

Without mentioning the United States by name, Mr. Ahmadinejad used his speech to carry out a full-scale assault on the country as power-mad and godless. He said its leaders “openly abandon morality” and act with “lewdness, selfishness, enmity and imposition in place of justice, love, affection and honesty.”

“Certain powers,” he said in a thinly veiled reference to Washington, were “setting up secret prisons, abducting persons, trials and secret punishments without any regard to due process, extensive tapping of telephone conversations, intercepting private mail.”

In answer to questions at a news conference about having proposed the extinction of Israel, he said he was instead proposing a referendum of all people living in the Palestinian territories and Israel, which he referred to as the “illegal Zionist regime” to see what their choice of country would be.

He said countries had been eliminated peaceably before, and he cited the case of the Soviet Union.

“What befell the Soviet Union?” he said. “It disappeared, but was it done through war? No. It was through the voice of the people.”

Asked by an Israeli journalist about the possibility that Iran was helping Syria acquire nuclear knowledge, he said, “Next question.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad was not alone in attacking the United States. So did Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua. Saying that Washington’s actions against Iran were like those of “God telling people what is good and bad,” he proposed that the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America join him in a march against the forces of “global capitalist imperialism.”

Late Tuesday, Hugo Chávez, the outspoken Venezuelan president who called Mr. Bush a devil last year from the General Assembly podium, announced in Caracas that he was no longer planning to come to New York to deliver his country’s speech on Wednesday.

He said instead that he planned to travel shortly to Saudi Arabia to defend the price of oil. “To $100,” said Mr. Chávez. “That is where we’re headed.”

By WARREN HOGE

Published: September 26, 2007

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, aired those and other bewildering thoughts in a two-hour verbal contest at Columbia University yesterday, providing some ammunition to people who said there was no point in inviting him to speak. Yet his appearance also offered evidence of why he is widely admired in the developing world for his defiance toward Western, especially American, power.

In repeated clashes with his hosts, Mr. Ahmadinejad accused the United States of supporting terrorist groups, and characterized as hypocritical American and European efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“If you have created the fifth generation of atomic bombs and are testing them already, who are you to question other people who just want nuclear power,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said, adding, pointedly: “I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs, politically, they’re backwards. Retarded.”

He said that there were no homosexuals in Iran — not one — and that the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews should not be treated as fact, but theory, and therefore open to debate and more research.

His speech at Columbia, in advance of his planned speech today at the United Nations, produced a day of intense protests and counterprotests around the campus. It was a performance at once both defiant — he said Iran could not recognize Israel “because it is based on ethnic discrimination, occupation and usurpation and it consistently threatens its neighbors” — and conciliatory — he said he wanted to visit ground zero to “show my respect” for what he called “a tragic event.”

And he said that even if the Holocaust did occur, the Palestinians should not pay the price for it.

He began the afternoon on the defensive.

Lee C. Bollinger, the president of Columbia, under intense attack for the invitation — one protester outside the campus auditorium where Mr. Ahmadinejad spoke passed out fliers that said, “Bollinger, too bad bin Laden is not available” — opened the event with a 10-minute verbal assault.

He said, “Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,” adding, “You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.”

The Iranian president, who was seated 10 feet away from him on the stage, wore a frozen smile. The anti-Ahmadinejad portion of the audience, which looked to be about 70 percent of it, cheered and chortled.

Mr. Bollinger praised himself and Columbia for showing they believed in freedom of speech by inviting the Iranian president, then continued his attack. He said it was “well documented” that Iran was a state sponsor of terrorism, accused Iran of fighting a proxy war against the United States in Iraq and questioned why Iran has refused “to adhere to the international standards” of disclosure for its nuclear program.

“I doubt,” Mr. Bollinger concluded, “that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad did not directly answer the questions, but he did address them. Before doing so though, he said pointedly:

“In Iran, tradition requires when you invite a person to be a speaker, we actually respect our students enough to allow them to make their own judgment, and don’t think it’s necessary before the speech is even given to come in with a series of complaints to provide vaccination to the students and faculty.”

He added, to some cheers, “Nonetheless, I shall not begin by being affected by this unfriendly treatment.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s much-talked-about appearance at Columbia was the opening act of a week of dramatic theater here as the United Nations General Assembly opened its annual session. He and his nemesis, President Bush, are scheduled to address the General Assembly today.

Mr. Bush, asked about Columbia’s decision to invite Mr. Ahmadinejad, told Fox News that it was “O.K. with me,” but added that he might not have extended the invitation himself.

“When you really think about it,” Mr. Bush said, “he’s the head of a state sponsor of terror, he’s — and yet an institution in our country gives him a chance to express his point of view, which really speaks to the freedoms of the country. I’m not sure I’d have offered the same invitation.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad is allowed under international law and diplomatic protocols to travel freely within a 25-mile radius of Columbus Circle. But the police said last week that he would not be allowed near ground zero.

Inside the auditorium, the Columbia students laughed appreciatively when Mr. Ahmadinejad pushed back against the attempts by Dean John H. Coatsworth, the event’s moderator, to get him to stop rambling and answer questions directly.

“Do you or your government seek the destruction of the state of Israel?” Mr. Coatsworth asked.

“We love all people,” Mr. Ahmadinejad dodged. “We are friends of the Jews. There are many Jews living peacefully in Iran.” He went on to say that the Palestinian “nation” should be allowed a referendum to decide its own future.

Mr. Coatsworth persisted: “I think you can answer that question with a simple yes or no.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad was having none of it. “You ask the question and then you want the answer the way you want to hear it,” he shot back. “I ask you, is the Palestinian issue not a question of international importance? Please tell me yes or no.”

For that, he got a round of applause from the students, who had lined up four hours before the speech to get into the auditorium. Online tickets evaporated in 90 minutes last week, they said, almost on par with a Bruce Springsteen concert.

“I’m proud of my university today,” said Stina Reksten, a 28-year-old graduate student from Norway. “I don’t want to confuse the very dire human rights situation in Iran with the issue here, which is freedom of speech. This is about academic freedom.”

It remains unclear whether Columbia’s leaders were able to mollify critics through their critical treatment of Mr. Ahmadinejad. But they made some headway: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee sent out an e-mail message shortly after the speech with the subject line, “A Must Read: Columbia University President’s Intro of Iran’s Ahmadinejad today.”

TEHRAN — When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was first elected president, he said Iran had more important issues to worry about than how women dress. He even called for allowing women into soccer games, a revolutionary idea for revolutionary Iran.
Today, Iran is experiencing the most severe crackdown on social behavior and dress in years, and women are often barred from smoking in public, let alone attending a stadium event.

Since his inauguration two years ago, Mr. Ahmadinejad has grabbed headlines around the world, and in Iran, for outrageous statements that often have no more likelihood of being put into practice than his plan for women to attend soccer games. He has generated controversy in New York in recent days by asking to visit ground zero — a request that was denied — and his scheduled appearance at Columbia University has drawn protests.

But it is because of his provocative remarks, like denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, that the United States and Europe have never known quite how to handle him. In demonizing Mr. Ahmadinejad, the West has served him well, elevating his status at home and in the region at a time when he is increasingly isolated politically because of his go-it-alone style and ineffective economic policies, according to Iranian politicians, officials and political experts.

Political analysts here say they are surprised at the degree to which the West focuses on their president, saying that it reflects a general misunderstanding of their system.

Unlike in the United States, in Iran the president is not the head of state nor the commander in chief. That status is held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, whose role combines civil and religious authority. At the moment, this president’s power comes from two sources, they say: the unqualified support of the supreme leader, and the international condemnation he manages to generate when he speaks up.

“The United States pays too much attention to Ahmadinejad,” said an Iranian political scientist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “He is not that consequential.”

That is not to say that Mr. Ahmadinejad is insignificant. He controls the mechanics of civil government, much the way a prime minister does in a state like Egypt, where the real power rests with the president. He manages the budget and has put like-minded people in positions around the country, from provincial governors to prosecutors. His base of support is the Basiji militia and elements of the Revolutionary Guards.

But Mr. Ahmadinejad has not shown the same political acumen at home as he has in riling the West. Two of his ministers have quit, criticizing his stewardship of the state. The head of the central bank resigned. The chief judge criticized him for his management of the government. His promise to root out corruption and redistribute oil wealth has run up against entrenched interests.

Even a small bloc of members of Parliament that once aligned with Mr. Ahmadinejad has largely given up, officials said. “Maybe it comes as a surprise to you that I voted for him,” said Emad Afrough, a conservative member of Parliament. “I liked the slogans demanding justice.”

But he added: “You cannot govern the country on a personal basis. You have to use public knowledge and consultation.”

Rather than focusing so much attention on the president, the West needs to learn that in Iran, what matters is ideology — Islamic revolutionary ideology, according to politicians and political analysts here. Nearly 30 years after the shah fell in a popular revolt, Iran’s supreme leader also holds title of guardian of the revolution.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s power stems not from his office per se, but from the refusal of his patron, Ayatollah Khamenei, and some hard-line leaders, to move beyond Iran’s revolutionary identity, which makes full relations with the West impossible. There are plenty of conservatives and hard-liners who take a more pragmatic view, wanting to retain “revolutionary values” while integrating Iran with the world, at least economically. But they are not driving the agenda these days, and while that could change, it will not be the president who makes that call.

“Iran has never been interested in reaching an accommodation with the United States,” the Iranian political scientist said. “It cannot reach an accommodation as long as it retains the current structure.”

Another important factor restricts Mr. Ahmadinejad’s hand: while ideology defines the state, the revolution has allowed a particular class to grow wealthy and powerful.

When Mr. Ahmadinejad was first elected, it appeared that Iran’s hard-liners had a monopoly on all the levers of power. But today it is clear that Mr. Ahmadinejad is not a hard-liner in the traditional sense. His talk of economic justice and a redistribution of wealth, for example, ran into a wall of existing vested interests, including powerful clergy members and military leaders.

“Ahmadinejad is a phenomenon,” said Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president under the more moderate administration of Mohammad Khatami. “On a religious level he is much more of a hard-liner than the traditional hard-liners. But on a political level, he does not have the support of the hard-liners.”

In the long run, political analysts here say, a desire to preserve those vested interests will drive Iran’s agenda. That means that the allegiance of the political elite is to the system, not a particular president. If this president were ever perceived as outlasting his usefulness, he would probably take his place in history beside other presidents who failed to change the orientation of the system.

Iranians will go to the polls in less than two years to select a president. There are so many pressures on the electoral system here, few people expect an honest race. The Guardian Council, for example, controlled by hard-liners, must approve all candidates.

But whether Mr. Ahmadinejad wins or loses, there is no sense here in Iran that the outcome will have any impact on the fundamentals of Iran’s relations with the world or the government’s relation to its own society.

“The situation will get worse and worse,” said Saeed Leylaz, an economist and former government official. “We are moving to a point where no internal force can change things.”

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

Published: September 24, 2007

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BAGHDAD, Sept. 18 — The Iraqi government said today that it would review the status of all foreign and local security companies working in Iraq after a shooting that left eight Iraqis dead.

Ahmad al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Blackwater contractors in Baghdad in 2005. Reports of the number of its employees in Iraq ranged from 1,000 to 1,500.

The Reach of War

Blackwater USA, an American contractor that provides security to some of the top American officials in Iraq, was banned from working in the country by the Ministry of Interior following the shooting on Sunday, which involved an American diplomatic convoy.

A spokesman for the Iraqi government, Ali al-Dabbag, said that the cabinet met today and supported the decision to cancel Blackwater’s license and begin an immediate investigation. The ministry has said that it would prosecute the participants in the shooting, but a law issued by the American occupation authority prior to the return of sovereignty to Iraq in 2004 grants immunity to American contractors, along with American military personnel, from Iraqi prosecution.

Mr. Dabbag said the investigation should “compel the company to respect the Iraqi laws, citizens’ dignity and the results and consequences the investigation would come up with.”

The statement by the Iraqi government today seemed to blame Blackwater employees directly for the deaths, calling it a “vicious assault which was carried out by the employees of the American security company” against Iraqi citizens.

But American officials have stopped short of saying whether the Blackwater guards in the diplomatic motorcade had caused any of the deaths.

Details of the shooting Sunday are still unclear. Bombs were going off in the area at the time, and shots were fired at the convoy, American officials said.

“There was a firefight,” said Sean McCormack, the principal State Department spokesman. “We believe some innocent life was lost. Nobody wants to see that. But I can’t tell you who was responsible for that.”

In separate violence today, a series of car bombs around Baghdad killed at least eight people. In the largest attack, a car bomb exploded close to the Health Ministry, near the central morgue, killing five civilians and injuring 20 others, the Ministry of Interior said. Another car bomb, which exploded in the Ur district near a popular market, killed one civilian.

The deaths on Sunday linked to the American security firm have struck a nerve with Iraqis, who say that private security companies are often quick to shoot and are rarely held responsible for their actions.

A security expert based in Baghdad said Monday night that the law granting contractors immunity, Order No. 17, had never been overturned. Like others, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter remains under official inquiry.

Senior officials, including Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, expressed outrage on Monday.

“This is a big crime that we can’t stay silent in front of,” said Jawad al-Bolani, the interior minister, in remarks on Al Arabiya television. “Anyone who wants to have good relations with Iraq has to respect Iraqis. We apply the law and are committed to it.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Mr. Maliki on Monday afternoon to express her regret “over the death of innocent civilians that occurred during the attack on an embassy convoy,” said Tom Casey, another State Department spokesman.

Mr. Maliki’s office said Ms. Rice had pledged to “take immediate steps to show the United States’ willingness to prevent such actions.”

Because Blackwater guards are so central to the American operation here, having provided protection for numerous American ambassadors, it is still not clear whether the United States would agree to end a relationship with a trusted protector so quickly. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker praised private security companies in a speech on Sept. 11, referring to Blackwater by name.

“This incident will be the true test of diplomacy between the State Department and the government of Iraq,” said one American official in Baghdad.

Blackwater has defended its actions, saying it had come under attack from armed militants.

“The ‘civilians’ reportedly fired upon by Blackwater professionals were in fact armed enemies, and Blackwater personnel returned defensive fire,” said Anne Tyrrell, a company spokeswoman, in an e-mail message. “Blackwater professionals heroically defended American lives in a war zone.”

The American official said he believed that the contract had been pulled, although Ms. Tyrrell said that there had been no official action by the Ministry of Interior “regarding plans to revoke licensing.” Mr. McCormack said the State Department had not been informed about any cancellation.