At least 14 killed by attacks in Iraq

VIOLENCE around Iraq claimed at least 14 lives yesterday, including a car bomb that blew up next to a police patrol in southeastern Baghdad, killing two passers-by.

In other developments:

* The US said it has plans that would keep the current level of troops in Iraq — about 15 brigades — through 2010.

Army chief of staff General Peter Schoomaker cautioned that people not read too much into the planning, saying it is easier to pull back forces than to get units prepared and deployed at the last minute.

“This is not a prediction that things are going poorly or better,” Gen Schoomaker said. “It’s just that I have to have enough ammo in the magazine that I can continue to shoot as long as they want us to shoot.”

His comments come less than four weeks before congressional elections, in which the unpopular war in Iraq and the Bush administration’s policies there are a major campaign issue.

* Saddam Hussein asked a judge trying him for genocide against Iraq’s ethnic Kurds in the 1980s not to cut off his microphone when he takes the stand.

Saddam made his plea a day after Chief Judge Mohammed al-Ureybi switched off the toppled leader’s microphone and ejected him from the courtroom after he began a speech.