Golly don't you wish it would have killed more?
Jim

"Harry Hope" <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:6vsf22lpqnh3qin1ei83t7r87g4foolr41@4ax.com...

From The Associated Press, 3/27/06:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060327/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AuzzviOK7r7_AH.kteEDIA.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

Bombing at Iraq Recruiting Center Kills 17

By MARIAM FAM, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq -

A suicide bomber attacked near a joint U.S.-Iraqi military base in
northern Iraq Monday, killing at least 17 people and wounding as many
as 30, the Iraqi military said.

At least 21 more corpses were found -- many with nooses around their
neck -- and mortar and bomb attacks killed at least four in Baghdad
and surrounding towns.

Brig. Muhsin Al-Dolaki, vice commander of the 3rd Iraqi Army division
at Camp Kasak put the death toll at 17 killed and 30 wounded.

The U.S. military said no American troops were hurt in the suicide
bombing about 18 miles east of the ancient city of Tal Afar.

The bomber struck shortly after noon at an Iraqi army recruiting
center in front of the base.

President Bush singled out Tal Afar in a recent speech as a success
story for American and Iraqi forces in the drive to quell the
insurgency.

Iraqi army Lt. Akram Eid told The Associated Press that many of the
injured were taken to the Sykes U.S. Army base on the outskirts of Tal
Afar, which is about 40 miles west of Mosul, Iraq's third largest
city.

The involvement of U.S. troops was limited to helping secure the area
after the attack, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military
spokesman.

Details of a joint U.S.-Iraqi Special Operations attack in northeast
Baghdad late Sunday continued to filter out.

The military, in an updated reported, said the joint operation "killed
16 insurgents and wounded three others during a house-to-house search
on an objective with multiple structures.

"They also detained 18 other individuals, discovered a significant
weapons cache and secured the release of an Iraqi being held hostage,"
the statement said.

Iraq's Interior Minister, however, reacted angrily, denouncing the
operation and rejecting the U.S. account.

"Entering the Mustafa Shiite Mosque and killing worshippers was
unjustified and a horrible violation from my point of view," Bayan
Jabr said on the Al-Arabiya TV news network.

"Innocent people inside the mosque offering prayer at sunset were
killed."

Also Monday, Baghdad Gov. Hussein Tahan told reporters the local
government had cut ties to the U.S. military and diplomatic mission.

"The Baghdad provincial council has decided to stop dealings in
regards to services and politics with the coalition forces and the
U.S. Embassy because of the cowardly attack on the al-Moustafa
mosque," he said without elaboration.

"Harsher measures will be taken in the future to preserve the dignity
of the Iraqi citizens," Tahan said.

Associated Press reporters who visited the scene Monday morning said
the site of the attack was clearly a neighborhood Shiite mosque
complex, although the American military insisted, "no mosques were
entered or damaged during this operation."

Johnson said the operation was only launched after observation of the
site convinced the military it was being used as a kidnapping cell.

"In our observation of the place and the activities that were going
on, it's difficult for us to consider this a place of prayer," Johnson
said.

"It was not identified by us as a mosque, though we certainly
recognized it as a community gathering center. I think this is frankly
a matter of perception."

Baghdad police said at least 22 were killed in the attack after gunmen
fired on the joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol from a position in the
neighborhood but not from the mosque.

Police and representatives of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr,
who holds great sway among poor Shiites in the eastern section of
Baghdad, said all those killed were in the complex for evening prayers
and none was a gunmen.

Associated Press videotape shot Monday showed crumbling walls and
disarray in a compound used as a gathering place for prayer.

It was filled with religious posters and strung with banners
denouncing the attack.

Mourners were gathering for funerals for the dead.

Sunday night video showed a tangle of dead male bodies with gunshot
wounds on the floor of what was said by the cameraman to be the imam's
living quarters, attached to mosque itself.

The compound, once used by Saddam Hussein's government, consists of a
political party office, the mosque and quarters for the mosque imam.

The tape showed 5.56 mm shell casings scattered about the floor.

U.S. forces use that caliber ammunition.

A grieving man in white Arab robes stepped among the bodies strewn
across the blood-smeared floor.

In an audiotape broadcast Monday, Saddam Hussein's chief deputy, who
has eluded capture since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq three years
ago, purportedly called for Arab leaders to back Iraq's Sunni-backed
insurgency.

The tape, which Al-Jazeera television said was made by Izzat Ibrahim
al-Douri, appeared to be an address to the Arab League summit in
Khartoum, Sudan, this week.

The voice on the tape said Iraq's Sunni-led insurgency was "the sole
legitimate representative of the Iraqi people."

It was impossible to determine the tape's authenticity.

Al-Douri was sixth on the U.S. deck of cards that enumerated the
most-wanted members of Saddam's regime.

He had been Revolutionary Command Council vice chairman and a longtime
Saddam confidant.

Al-Douri, who is at least 62, was among Saddam's oldest and closest
associates.

In the capital, a bomb exploded in a bus headed for the Sadr City slum
of east Baghdad, killing two passengers and wounding at least four
others, police Col. Hassan Jaloob said.

The bomb had been left in a bag, he said.

The latest violence came a day after 69 people were reported killed in
one of the bloodiest 24-hour periods in weeks.

Most of the dead appeared to be victims of the shadowy Sunni-Shiite
score-settling that has torn at the fabric of Iraq since Feb. 22 when
a Shiite shrine was blown apart in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Thirty victims of the continuing sectarian slaughter -- most of them
beheaded -- were found dumped on a village road north of Baghdad.

At least 16 other Iraqis were killed in a U.S.-backed raid in the
capital.

Among the 21 bodies reported Monday, nine were found in west Baghdad
that were handcuffed, blindfolded and with ropes around their necks,
police Lt. Akeel Fadhil said.

Three bodies, of two men and a woman shot in the head, were found late
Sunday in east Baghdad, police said.

At a farm east of Baghdad, the bodies of nine men kidnapped a day
earlier were discovered by relatives, police said.

All had been shot in the head.

Mortar rounds slammed into streets in east Baghdad's Zaiyona district
and the central area of Karradah, killing one bystander and wounding
at least five others, police said.

Another mortar hit a home in Baladiyat in the east, but no casualties
were reported.

Two separate roadside bombs targeting police patrols wounded a total
of two policemen and three civilians in west and southwest Baghdad,
police said.

Another bomb targeting a U.S. convoy exploded in Zaiyona, but there
was no word on casualties, police said.

Much of the recent killing in Iraq is seen as the work of Shiite
militias or death squads that have infiltrated or are tolerated by
Iraqi police under the control of the Shiite-dominated Interior
Ministry.

In an apparent effort to clamp down on police wrongdoing, American
troops raided an Interior Ministry building and briefly detained about
10 Iraqi policemen after discovering 17 Sudanese prisoners in the
facility, Iraqi authorities reported.

The report was reminiscent of a similar U.S. raid last November that
found detainees apparently tortured.

That discovery set off a round of international demands for
investigations and reform of Iraqi police practices to ensure
observance of human rights.

In this case the Americans quickly determined the Sudanese were held
legitimately and had not been abused, said Maj. Gen. Ali Ghalib, a
deputy interior minister.

The U.S. military command here had no immediate comment.

The raid in Baghdad came a day after U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad
spoke out on the need to cap the sectarian, militia-inspired killing,
saying "More Iraqis are dying today from the militia violence than
from the terrorists."

He did not say which militias he meant nor did he define who the
terrorists were.

The two major militia forces in the country are Shiite organizations
-- the Mahdi Army of al-Sadr and the Badr Brigades, the armed wing of
the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Both have ties with Iran.

Following the mosque raid Sunday night, Prime Minister Ibrahim
al-Jaafari, a Shiite, expressed concern and telephoned Iraqi military
leaders and U.S. Gen. George Casey to "discuss the situation," said
spokesman Abdul Rezzaq Al-Kadhimi.

He said the prime minister promised government compensation for
families of those killed in the raid and called for Iraqis to be
patient until an investigation was completed.

__________________________________________________________

OK, rightards, and your "good news" is................................

What? You don't know? Well, check with ***** Cyst Limbaugh. He'll tell
ya. He's got lots of phony....er....good news.

Harry