| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
01 Aug 2004 11:05:50 PM |
| Object: |
War News for August 1, 2004 |
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/
War News for August 1, 2004
Bring ‘em on: Car bomb at Mosul police station kills five Iraqis,
wounds 50.
Bring ‘em on: Heavy fighting continues in Fallujah; 10 Iraqis killed,
40 wounded.
Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqis killed, two wounded by roadside bomb in
Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Kirkuk airport under rocket fire.
Bring ‘em on: Four US soldiers wounded in patrol ambush near Samarra.
Bring ‘em on: US troops under mortar fire in central Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Three US convoys ambushed near Fallujah.
Bring ‘em on: US Marines repel insurgent attack near Fallujah.
Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqi policemen killed, three wounded in ambush near
Haswa.
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, two wounded by roadside bomb near
Samarra.
US troops arrest al-Sadr aide in Karbala.
British troops may withdraw from Iraq in January. "Despite continuing
violence in Iraq, senior British military figures believe that the
elected Iraqi government would not want large numbers of foreign
troops to stay for long, the paper said. The report quoted Lieutenant
General Andrew Ridgeway, the chief of defense intelligence, as saying
that with elections due in Iraq for January, it was unlikely that any
political party would win power without promising to scale back
foreign troops."
Iraqi police. "Insurgents see police as collaborators with U.S.-led
forces, who are struggling to restore order. They've blown up police
stations all over the country, sometimes disguised as cops. They've
gunned down officers in drive-by shootings as they left home for work,
and they've battered police stations with mortar barrages and
rocket-propelled grenades. From April 2003 to May 2004 alone, 710
Iraqi police were killed out of a total force of 130,000 officers,
authorities said. Until then, police say, an officer's death was
nearly always of natural causes. Last month's handover of sovereignty
to an interim Iraqi government has brought little change."
More on Iraqi security forces. "Defections pose a serious obstacle to
the rebuilding of Iraq's security forces but not the only one.
Planning has been chaotic, units have staged mutinies, and essential
equipment has not been delivered. In recent months, the entire process
of recruitment and training has been largely scrapped and begun again,
and the interim Iraqi government that was installed on June 28 has
dictated more changes. ‘It was worse than starting from scratch,’
complained Sabah Kadhim, a top official in the Interior Ministry,
which is in charge of police. ‘We had to weed out criminals from the
policemen who the Americans put there.’"
Ramadi. "The strategy in Ramadi, 90 miles west of Baghdad, has kept
insurgents from gaining the free hand they wield in nearby Fallujah,
where Marines headed off a bloody showdown in April by handing
security duties to a group of former army officers and resistance
fighters. It has also kept millions of US reconstruction dollars
pouring into Ramadi, while the resistance in Fallujah has led to a
cutoff in US aid. But staying in Ramadi comes at a high price. The
Marines stationed in three small bases downtown have borne the highest
concentration of US casualties since early April. The Second
Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment, has seen 31 Marines killed, and
more than 200 wounded. That casualty rate amounts to more than 20
percent."
Sergeant Craft. "That fleeting moment on the big screen in Michael
Moore's controversial movie came at a steep price. Emotionally and
physically. Craft and his unit were on patrol outside Baghdad on Nov.
25 when a roadside bomb ripped through his Humvee, blowing away the
sergeant's left leg and shattering his right."
Sergeant Gomez. "He lies there frozen on his bed as his parents and
doctors explain why he has been in the hospital for the past three
weeks. The information comes quickly, and parts of it confuse him
after a long coma. There had been an accident in Iraq. His tank rolled
into a river near Bayji, and he had been under water for 10 minutes.
His spine is broken in two places, and some internal organs have been
severely damaged. He will not walk again. If he gains enough arm
mobility to brush his teeth, it will be a major accomplishment. In the
ensuing weeks, Joel Gomez will become a nameless number in military
records and media reports. History will now refer to him as one of the
308 U.S. soldiers injured in Iraq during the month of March."
Abu Ghraib. "The new classified military documents offer a chilling
picture of what happened at Abu Ghraib -- including detailed reports
that U.S. troops and translators sodomized and raped Iraqi prisoners.
The secret files -- 106 ‘annexes’ that the Defense Department withheld
from the Taguba report last spring -- include nearly 6,000 pages of
internal Army memos and e-mails, reports on prison riots and escapes,
and sworn statements by soldiers, officers, private contractors and
detainees. The files depict a prison in complete chaos. Prisoners were
fed bug-infested food and forced to live in squalid conditions;
detainees and U.S. soldiers alike were killed and wounded in nightly
mortar attacks; and loyalists of Saddam Hussein served as guards in
the facility, apparently smuggling weapons to prisoners inside."
Commentary
Analysis: "It would have been easy to tackle the fighters in
Afghanistan. But it is difficult to zero in on them in Iraq. They are
now like a needle in a haystack. Iraq’s towns are thickly populated.
The fighters are under the umbrella of the millions of people there.
It would have been easy for the US to bomb a mountain or scarcely
populated hamlet in Afghanistan, and eliminate these men. But it is
difficult to hit them now in Iraq."
Opinion: "As a senator for 20 years, John Kerry has cast enough votes
for anyone to campaign against him straight up on national security
and foreign policy. But it's been about more than that. President Bush
took the National Guard pass on Vietnam, vaulting over about 100
others to get in. Many of his top aides, including the vice president,
used deferments to avoid the war. Yet the Bush campaign has implied
that Sen. Kerry, who chose to put himself in harm's way, saved another
man's life and earned his colleagues' lasting respect is unpatriotic
because he came home and opposed the war. Is this tactic repulsive?
Yes, but it's also the Bush Way."
Casualty Reports
Local story: New York Marine killed in Iraq.
Local story: Wisconsin Guardsman wounded in Iraq.
___________________________________________________________
Sources available at http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/
Harry
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