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Weekend fighting along the Turkey-Iraq border ratcheted up frictions yet further. Iraq-based guerrillas from the Kurdish PKK faction crossed into Turkey, killing a dozen soldiers, taking a further eight captive. ABC sent Jim Sciutto to Diyarbakir in Turkish Kurdistan to monitor the build-up of 100,000 troops in the border zone. "A Turkish invasion of northern Iraq, a region under American military control, would be an embarrassment for the United States," Sciutto understated. From the Pentagon, CBS' David Martin reported that Joseph Ralston has resigned as the State Department's special envoy to Ankara because the United States failed to honor its commitment to Turkey "to take care of the PKK." Martin explained why the crackdown never occurred: "American commanders in Iraq say they cannot spare the troops." He repeated the latest Pentagon "plan" from an unnamed source in the military: "Stay the hell away from there and hope to God it does not get out of control." No wonder the source wanted to stay anonymous.
ABC filed a second Iraqi story from the once-wartorn city of Fallujah. Without a carbomb attack on its streets since May, the population, displaced by the Marine Corps' siege, is returning in its tens of thousands, Miguel Marquez marveled: "The markets bustle. Traffic chokes the streets." The economy is not keeping yet pace as "unemployment has rocketed to 70%." The city is trying to solve that problem with a construction boom, "from huge infrastructure projects to fixing sidewalks," and a tough of hi-tech: "Fallujah even sports solar street lights."
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