In a food-poisoning incident unusual even by the standards of current Iraqi mayhem, about 400 Iraqi policemen, most of them Shiite, became ill after a Ramadan dinner on Sunday night in the southern city of Numaniya, Iraqi authorities said.

All in all, it will be foolish to assume the forthcoming conference will solve our current mayhem overnight.

Historians, politicians, Israelis and Arabs will probably argue for years whether that decision to keep the conflict at arm's length contributed to the current mayhem.

Asked whether the current mayhem threatened the plan to return sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30, he said: "The date has been out there for some time.