Search For Chopper Crash Crew

3 Missing After U.S. Craft Crashed Into Tigris River In N. Iraq

(CBS/AP)  U.S. forces aided by Iraqis searched the muddy waters of the Tigris river Monday in northern Iraq for a soldier and two pilots missing after a helicopter crashed while searching for a river patrol boat that had overturned.

Two Iraqi policemen and an Iraqi translator accompanying the American soldiers in the patrol boat were confirmed killed in the incident, said the spokeswoman. But one soldier was still missing while three others survived, she said.

The OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter, attached to the 101st Airborne Division, crashed in the Tigris in the northern town of Mosul on Sunday evening during a search-and-rescue mission a couple of hours later and both crew members were missing. The U.S. military said it was still investigating, but initial indications were that both crashes "were not the result of enemy action."

Separately, four Iraqi policemen manning a checkpoint outside Ramadi west of Baghdad were killed Sunday in a drive-by shooting, police Lt. Col. Saad Someir said.

In other recent developments:

Fallout continued following claims by David Kay, the outgoing chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. Kay's remarks reignited criticism from Democrats in the United States. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, on the other hand, said Monday that he still he believes Saddam Hussein had them and that war was justified.

With security guards now deployed along Iraq's export pipeline to the Mediterranean, crude from one of the country's biggest oil fields could start flowing to overseas markets "in a matter of days," a senior Iraqi oil official told The Associated Press.

Vice President Dick Cheney sought to strengthen trans-Atlantic relations in Italy on Monday, thanking the Italians for help in Iraq despite widespread public opposition to the war.

Japan's defense chief issued a dispatch order Monday for the bulk of the ground troops Japan is sending to Iraq, moving ahead with the humanitarian mission despite concerns about the soldiers' safety.

U.S. troops arrested nearly 50 people Sunday in raids in the Sunni Triangle in central Iraq after attacks in the volatile region killed six American soldiers. The deaths raised to 513 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the United States and its allies launched the Iraq war March 20.

The Kiowa Warrior was the fifth U.S. helicopter to crash in Iraq this month. Three others were brought down by enemy fire and a fourth, also a Kiowa Warrior, crashed Friday south of Mosul soon after takeoff, killing both pilots. The reason was not clear.

"Search efforts are still under way for the three soldiers utilizing all available assets," a military statement said Monday, adding that Iraqi Police and Fire Department search and rescue teams were assisting.

The three missing service members were with the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division, according to the statement.

The News Tribune of Tacoma newspaper, which has a reporter embedded with the division, said the helicopter went down on the east bank of the Tigris just across from the populous old part of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. When rescuers reached the helicopter, they found no one aboard, the Washington-based newspaper said, quoting unidentified officials.

Witnesses said a U.S. patrol came under rocket propelled grenade fire in Mosul on Monday but there were no casualties.

The crashes add to the mounting losses for American forces as the U.S.-led civil administration prepares to hand over power to a sovereign Iraqi government on July 1.

That plan — which envisages a non-elected government to take over after regional caucuses — has run into stiff opposition from a powerful Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, who wants direct elections.

U.S. officials say the continuing violence and the absence of an electoral roll or a census make it impossible to hold early elections. However, the United States cannot afford to offend the Shiite leadership, because Shiites are estimated to comprise about 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people.

"The clerics' opinion is the opinion of the Iraqi people in general," Muwafaq al-Rubaei, a Shiite member of the U.S.-installed Governing Council, said Sunday after meeting with al-Sistani.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to announce this week, possibly Monday, whether to send a team to Iraq to assess if early polls are possible as requested by the United States.

Washington hopes that the involvement of the United Nations will help break the deadlock and satisfy the Shiites.




©MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Share:

• Share
• Yahoo! Buzz
• Twitter
• Mixx

CBSNews.com On Digg

More From Iraq After Saddam

• Chief Pentagon Auditor Forced from Post
• AP: Military Contractor Oversight Too Lax
• Top Saddam Aide Gets Second Conviction
• Bombs Claim 50 in Iraq
• Biden Meets with Key U.S. Leaders in Iraq
• Senate Investigates Blackwater Subsidiary
• Celebration, Carnage Mark Handover in Iraq

• 

  PhotosExplosions Rock Baghdad

• 

  PhotosIraq Photos:July 13?July 19