US Deaths 999 - Cost $200,000,000,000
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| Tue, 09-07-2004 - 1:54pm |
C
Thirteen U.S. troops killed in latest Iraq fighting
Two Italian humanitarian workers kidnapped
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Thirteen U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since Monday, U.S. military officials said, bringing the number of American deaths in the war to 999.
Six soldiers and seven Marines were killed in the fighting. The latest death came Tuesday morning when a soldier from the U.S. Army's 89th Military Police Brigade was killed as a patrol came under attack in western Baghdad. Another soldier was killed Tuesday in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Baghdad's Sadr City.
Meanwhile, Iraqi police said two Italian women and three Iraqis were abducted by kidnappers dressed as Iraqi National Guard members.
An Italian intelligence source said the women worked for the humanitarian organization A Bridge for Baghdad.
Italian authorities identify the women as Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, both 29, according to media reports.
Fighting in Sadr City erupted between U.S. forces and insurgents in the teeming slum after a few days of calm.
Battles between U.S. troops and militants loyal to Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr killed at least 33 Iraqis in the Baghdad slum district and wounded 200 others, Iraqi officials said.
A spokesman for the 1st Calvary Division -- which is in charge of patrolling Sadr City -- said there were numerous overnight operations, but the official wouldn't provide details.
Tanks, armored personnel carriers and Bradley Fighting Vehicles moved along city streets, and the U.S. military said Air Force F-15 and F-16 jets flew combat support but dropped no weapons.
The fighting erupted when militants attacked American forces carrying out routine patrols, said U.S. Army Capt. Brian O'Malley.
"We just kept coming under fire," The Associated Press reported O'Malley as saying.
U.S. and Iraqi authorities have been trying to hammer out a peace agreement there a week and a half after al-Sadr and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani reached a cease-fire in the south central city of Najaf -- where fierce fighting raged between U.S. and Iraqi forces and the Mehdi Army militia for three weeks in August.
An al-Sadr spokesman in Baghdad, Sheik Raed al-Kadhimi, blamed the outbreak of fighting on what he described as hostile U.S. incursions into Sadr City and attempts to arrest the cleric's followers.
In addition, five U.S. soldiers were wounded in a combination of roadside bombings and rocket-propelled grenade attacks Tuesday.
The other U.S. deaths Monday included a Task Force Baghdad soldier killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.
A soldier with the 13th Corps Support Command was killed in the northern Iraq town of Qayarra when a roadside bomb exploded, the military said.
Another U.S. soldier was killed and one wounded Monday night when a roadside bomb exploded as their military convoy passed by on a road near Baghdad, according to the U.S. military. The soldiers, whose names have not been released, also were assigned to the 13th Corps Support Command.
A U.S. soldier wounded in a Baghdad attack Monday afternoon died a short time later in a hospital, a U.S. military official said.
Earlier Monday, seven U.S. Marines and three Iraqi National Guard members were killed by a suicide car bomb as they patrolled on the outskirts of Falluja, a city west of Baghdad that has been a hotbed of resistance.
It was the largest number of casualties U.S. forces have suffered in a single incident since fighting in the spring near Ramadi.
Cleanup in Najaf
Iraqi and U.S. authorities continue their cleanup in Najaf.
Large numbers of weapons and munitions have been found in the Wadi al-Salem cemetery and buildings near the Imam Ali Mosque since fighting ended August 28, the U.S. military said.
So far, 1,258 weapons have been found and 10,596 munitions recovered, the military said.
Iraqi officials attacked
The governor of Baghdad escaped an assassination attempt unhurt early Tuesday when his convoy was attacked in a western district of the capital.
The convoy of the governor, Ali Al-Haidary, was driving through the Al-Adil district when the attack began, Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul Rahman said.
Video from the scene showed at least one body being placed in an ambulance.
Masked gunmen Tuesday assassinated a Baghdad hospital official, Iraqi officials said.
Abbas al-Husseiny, deputy director of Al-Karama Hospital, was assassinated when three gunmen entered a restaurant where he was eating breakfast, according to police Col. Riyadh Abraheem and Sa'ad Al-Amili, a Ministry of Health official.
The restaurant and hospital are in al-Thahab district, officials said.
In northern Iraq, unknown assailants shot and killed the son of Nineveh provincial Gov. Duraid Kashmoula, Mosul police said. Laith Duraid Kashmoula was driving to work when assailants pulled up next to his car and opened fire with small arms, police said.
He was an employee in the Iraqi government's anti-corruption office in Mosul, the largest city in the northern Iraqi province. The governor's cousin, Usama Kashmoula, was shot dead in an ambush two months ago.
CNN's Kevin Flower, Cal Perry, Faris Qasira, Walter Rodgers and Alessio Vinci contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/09/07/iraq.main/index.html
Edited 9/9/2004 7:58 am ET ET by car_al

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This is rich. The administration that ALLOWED this country to be hit on 9/11 is now claiming that they need to be reelected because another administration MIGHT allow this country to be hit.
My calendar must be wrong. It says it's 2004, but looking at the government we have and their doublespeak it's got to be 1984.
dablacksox
Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html
The first 3/4 of this speech with slides is devoted to Iraq’s WMD and the final 1/4 tries to show Iraq’s ties to terrorism.
FYI, I believed that Saddam had WMD after listening To Sec. Powell; I just disagreed with the “rush to war”.
No political party has to re-write history, the record is out there if you look for it.
C
IMO war is not a severe consequence, it's a fatal one and we did start a pre-emptive war with Iraq.
C
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