U.S. Warplanes Renew Bombing of Iraq Targets

[spillmind]

put your money where your mouth is, or stop crying about the challenge.

 

[spillmind]

enjoy

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents killed a U.S. military policeman, the U.S. command said Monday, and a top U.S. general sat down with local leaders in Iraq (news - web sites)'s most dangerous region to tell them attacks must stop.

In Sadr City, a poor, mainly Shiite quarter of eastern Baghdad, witnesses said a U.S. soldier shot and killed the head of the district's U.S.-appointed municipal council in a weekend altercation.

Gen. John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, met over the weekend with mayors and tribal leaders of Anbar province — where the so-called "Sunni Triangle," scene of the heaviest anti-U.S. resistance is located — an Iraqi who attended the meeting said Monday.

Abizaid pointed to Fallujah, one of the main towns in the Sunni Triangle, as a "hot area" and warned that if the city refuses to cooperate "in the rebuilding process," there "might be another policy," Fallujah Mayor Taha Bedawi told The Associated Press.


The general did not specify the new measures, but told the local leaders in Saturday's meeting, "Irresponsible behavior such as explosions and strikes against coalition forces are prohibited and we will take measures. We have the capabilities and equipment," Bedawi said.


Elsewhere, U.S. forces seized nearly 1,000 rockets during weekend raids in Tikrit and Beiji, north of Baghdad, the 4th Infantry Division said Monday. Soldiers from the division's 3rd Brigade also confiscated 1,500 rounds of 155 mm artillery shells in Balad, south of Tikrit, division spokeswoman Maj. Josslyn Aberle said.


Also, about 40 people were detained for various offenses in overnight patrols around Tikrit, she said.


The military policeman was killed when insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a patrol late Sunday in Iskandariyah, 40 miles south of Baghdad, a U.S. statement said.


In northern Iraq — which had been calmer than the Sunni Triangle but has seen increasing violence recently — assailants in Mosul opened fire on the car of a local oil official, Mohammed Ahmed Zibari, wounding him and killing his son, the official's brother said.


"It's the terrorists, I expect, because they think he's cooperating with Americans," Nawzat Zibari, the brother, said. "They think that any official or employee is happy if he's dealing with the Americans."


After a wave of increasingly bloody attacks that have killed 37 American soldiers this month, the military has said it will intensify operations against centers of resistance. On Saturday, U.S. warplanes twice dropped giant, 500-pound bombs on sites near Fallujah in a show of force.


Lt. Col. George Krivo said the military has "picked up the intensity of our offensive operations" — particularly concentrating troops in areas west of Baghdad where guerrillas operate.


The downing of a Chinook transport helicopter and the crash of a Black Hawk helicopter made the first week of November the bloodiest for American forces since President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1.


On Sunday, a senior Iraqi official warned that mounting violence may delay steps toward a new constitution, considered a major condition for returning the country to full Iraqi rule.


L. Paul Bremer, the coalition's chief administrator in Iraq, warned that the coalition should expect intensified attacks in coming months.


"We're going to have increased attacks and increased terrorism because the terrorists can see the reconstruction dynamic is moving in our direction," Bremer was quoted as saying in The Times newspaper of London.


"It will be more of a problem in the months ahead unless the intelligence gets better."





Soldiers arrested 18 people in connection with a deadly missile barrage last month against Baghdad's Al-Rasheed hotel, where U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying at the time. Wolfowitz, an architect of the Iraq war, was not injured but a U.S. colonel was killed.

In Sadr City, the head of the municipal council, Muhanad al-Kaadi, was shot Sunday after an argument with a U.S. sentry posted at the entrance to the municipal building.

The guard apparently did not recognize al-Kaadi when he tried to enter the building, said Ahmed Hanoun, a township resident who said he was waiting outside the gate to apply for a job when the incident occurred.

A military spokesman said Sunday's shooting occurred when a car was prevented from entering the building's courtyard. The driver — who was not identified — got out of the vehicle and attacked one of the guards, trying to grab his weapon. Another soldier shot the man in the leg and he later died of his wounds, the statement said.

U.S. authorities hand-picked members of the council soon after the fall of Baghdad. The area's 2 million Shiites, who were subjected to severe persecution by Saddam Hussein secret police, welcomed the U.S. troops as liberators.

Also Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said there were clashes in northern Iraq involving U.S. troops and Turkish Kurdish rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK.

The U.S. military information office in Baghdad said it could not confirm the report.


got liberation?

 

[RMW]

Originally posted by SLClemens
If you'd like to read a biased, left-wing report of these same events and some related ones by a bunch of whiney foreigners I'd recommend you take a peak at http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1081221,00.html

I am curious to know where you see the "left" persuasion, because I don't see it, and I can usually tell right off the bat where on the political spectrum a text falls. I didn't look at the report, but it seems to me pretty clear that the administration did not plan for post-Saddam Iraq. Do you think this is not so?

 

[SLClemens]

Originally posted by RMW
I am curious to know where you see the "left" persuasion, because I don't see it, and I can usually tell right off the bat where on the political spectrum a text falls. I didn't look at the report, but it seems to me pretty clear that the administration did not plan for post-Saddam Iraq. Do you think this is not so?

I also think that the administration did not plan for post-Saddam Iraq, and just let wishful thinking and adventurism run amuck.

The "left" persuasion comes from looking at the article in the context of the wider war, and how it fails to heap implicit praise upon American activities and remind readers how awful Saddam was and how much better Iraq must be without him, and how it points out facts that might be embarrassing to the proud administration that governs the greatest nation on earth of which we should all be so proud in every possible respect.

By any neutral standard they'd be center or even a bit generous to the US by not recounting the history of lies that got us to this point, of course. I'm just speaking from an American perspective, and thought I'd pre-empt warmongers familair with the British press. But then how many warmongers read the British press on a regular basis anyways?

 

[Bry]

Tony Blaire, for starters, jejeje

 

[spillmind]

the sarcasm was very twain-esque.