Iraq finance official, driver shot dead
Interior Ministry backs staggered-vote proposal
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 Iraqi Red Crescent and U.S. troops cooperate to aid Falluja.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A high-ranking official in the Iraqi Finance Ministry and his driver were killed on a violent stretch in central Baghdad, ministry sources said Wednesday.
Azhar Abdul Ghani al-Yasiri and his driver were gunned down Tuesday as the two were driving from the ministry in the Baghdad district of Karakh, the sources said.
It happened on Haifa Street, which has been the scene of intense fighting between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Meanwhile, elements of the the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division late Wednesday launched Operation High Noon, a mission to search about 1,000 homes in the heavily insurgent Adhamiyah district of northern Baghdad.
Commanders said the operation was in response to last Friday's attack, when suicide bombers drove a minibus loaded with explosives into a Shiite mosque in Adhamiyah, killing 14 civilians and wounding 19 others, many of whom had gathered for morning prayers.
Earlier Wednesday, two American soldiers were wounded and an Army vehicle damaged when a roadside bomb targeting a U.S. military convoy detonated in Baghdad, the military said.
North of the capital, a car bomb also went off Wednesday near a U.S. military convoy in Samarra, killing the driver but causing no military casualties, said a spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division.
In a separate attack in Samarra, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade on a U.S. patrol near a mosque, prompting the patrol to return fire, the military said. No casualties were reported on either side.
Plan eyes vote over many days
Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim on Wednesday endorsed a proposal by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to spread the nation's first free election over several days, saying, "It would be better for us and the voters."
Kadhim said the committee planning security for the January 30 election had discussed the idea.
The final decision on the issue remains in the hands of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, Kadhim said. No official recommendation has been submitted to that panel.
Kadhim said the plan would call for various provinces to have elections on specific days, as opposed to a nationwide vote on a single day.
Distributing the vote over several days would allow the ministry to allocate resources and personnel to ensure voter safety and security essential to successful elections, Kadhim said.
In newspaper reports Tuesday, Allawi suggested the elections could be spread out over 15 to 20 days to improve the chances that more Iraqis will vote.
But Abdul Hussein al-Hindawi, head of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said he doubted that such a proposal was possible.
He noted there are questions about the technical viability of such a plan, and the problem that, under Iraq's transitional administrative law, the elections cannot be held after January 31.
Insurgent attacks plaguing Iraq have prompted calls from many Iraqis for a delay in the elections, but the interim government and the United States appear determined to leave the date unchanged.
There has been particular concern about the ability to hold elections in parts of the Sunni Muslim heartland, where insurgent attacks have been significant.
Allawi visited Russia on Tuesday and met with President Vladimir Putin, who reportedly predicted that Iraq will have problems with its election.
"Frankly speaking, I cannot imagine how elections can be organized when the entire country is occupied by foreign troops," Putin was quoted as saying by Russia's Interfax news agency.
Other developments
Four members of a U.S. special operations unit have been punished for excessive use of force after Defense Intelligence Agency investigators reported the troops tried to keep them from reporting the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday. (Full story)Former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party may be funding the Iraqi insurgency from Syria, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told the Arabic satellite news channel Al-Arabiya on Wednesday. "We will take these matters up with the Syrians," Armitage said, adding, "There have been some activities that the Syrians have undertaken which have been positive, but certainly not enough."The nephew of the man known in Iraq as "Chemical Ali" was detained by U.S. troops in Iraq earlier this week, several U.S. officials confirmed to CNN Wednesday. The arrest of the nephew, Izz al-Din al-Majid, is considered particularly significant because U.S intelligence believes he controls billions of dollars that has been used to fund the insurgency in Iraq. His uncle, Ali Hassan al-Majid is a cousin of Saddam Hussein, and is the man thought to have ordered the 1988 chemical attack on Kurds in Iraq. He is in U.S. custody. British Defense Minister Geoff Hoon visited British troops Wednesday in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. While in Basra, Hoon will hold talks with local officials.South Korea's president made a surprise visit Wednesday to his country's troops in Iraq. President Roh Moo-hyun stopped in the Erbil region of northern Iraq. South Korea has 3,600 troops in Iraq, but they don't serve in combat roles. The country has the third largest contingent after the United States and Britain. A classified CIA cable and briefings indicate that the overall situation in Iraq is not expected to improve anytime soon, according to an article in Tuesday's New York Times. The cable, reportedly written by the CIA's Baghdad station chief, outlines a pessimistic immediate future for Iraq's politics, economics and security. (Full story)Jordanian King Abdullah II said forces in Iraq are "getting close" to capturing militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "He's slipped through the net once or twice where we got closer to him than he would have liked," Abdullah said. "The Iraqis, Jordanians and coalition forces are working very hard to track him down -- and we're getting close." The king said he based his assessment on "hard intelligence." (Full story)CNN's Ayman Mohyeldin and Nermeen Mufti contributed to this report.
