Iraqi Insurgents Shoot It Out With Troops

(CBS/AP)  Iraqi and American forces fought Sunni insurgents in an hours-long street battle Saturday in the increasingly violent city of Baqouba, as residents fled indoors under the rattle of automatic weapons fire and the blasts of rocket-propelled grenades.

City police said at least 18 people were killed and 19 wounded.

Nationwide, police and morgue officials said the death toll was 53, including those killed in Baqouba.

The city was chaotic following the fighting, and Baqouba's police media office said it was not known how many of the dead were Sunni insurgent fighters. The Americans reported no dead or wounded among U.S. forces.

Violence in Baquoba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, has skyrocketed in recent weeks, particularly after a major battle between Sunnis and Shiites in the nearby city of Balad last month. Scores of civilians in Baqouba have been killed in the violence in the past two weeks alone.

Elsewhere, coalition forces raided a Shiite militia stronghold in Baghdad searching for dozens of Iraqi hostages and combed through a rural area in southern Iraq where four American security contractors and an Austrian were kidnapped. Both efforts appeared to come up empty-handed.

Iraqi soldiers backed by U.S. helicopters swept through the Sadr City section of the capital after intelligence indicated that an armed group was holding some of the scores of Iraqis who were snatched from a Higher Education Ministry office building in Baghdad on Tuesday, the military said.

The Americans said the raid was conducted to rescue captives and disrupt kidnapping and insurgent cells. Asked if any hostages had been found, the military would only say: "No individuals were killed, injured or detained."

Iraqi police said the raid began at 2:30 a.m., swept through two sections of Sadr City and wounded three Iraqi civilians.

On Tuesday, gunmen dressed in Interior Ministry commando uniforms abducted about 150 men from the central Baghdad office that handles academic grants and exchanges. The men were handcuffed and driven away in about 20 pickup trucks. About half were released on Tuesday night and Wednesday, a government minister said.

A Sunni who said he was among the hostages freed claimed the kidnappers broke his arm. He said he saw them kill at least three hostages after taking them to empty houses in the Sadr City Shiite slum.

The mass kidnapping was widely believed to have been the work of the Mahdi Army, the heavily armed militia of the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The kidnapping has raised questions about Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's commitment to wiping out the militias of his prime political backers: the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and al-Sadr's Sadrist Movement.

All of this has reinforced the conviction among ordinary Iraqis that Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki and his Shiite-dominated government are weak — and growing weaker, reports CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer.

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Read Elizabeth Palmer's story on the call to return former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to power.

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"The entire government is doing nothing," said one Iraqi man. "We need a tough non-sectarian leader to disband the militias."

Iraqis everywhere say the former prime minister, Iyad Allawi, must come back.

In other developments:

British Prime Minister Tony Blair caused a storm of controversy with an interview on the new English-language Al Jazeera network. Journalist David Frost suggested that the war in Iraq had been "pretty much of a disaster" and Blair said, "It has, but you see what I say to people is 'why is it difficult in Iraq?'"

Americans' approval of President Bush's handling of Iraq has dropped to the lowest level ever, increasing the pressure on the commander-in-chief to find a way out after nearly four years of war. The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found just 31 percent approval on his handling of Iraq, days after voters registered their displeasure at the polls by defeating Republicans across the board and handing control of Congress to the Democrats. The previous low in AP-Ipsos polling was 33 percent in both June and August.

The Defense Department announced Friday that 57,000 U.S. troops, including five combat brigades, have been told to deploy to Iraq early next year. The deployment will maintain current force levels there. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed the deployment orders for about 20,000 soldiers from active duty Army brigades based in four U.S. states and in Italy. Another 10,000 reserves and 27,000 active duty troops are scheduled to go to Iraq in smaller units.

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[feelfree1]

Tinker3478,

Re: "And your source for that is what?"

Every single public statement that they have ever made on the subject, for starters.

Can you find a single example where either one of them has acknowledged that the illegal war of aggression against Iraq, based only upon lies and hype, is wrong? NOT 'botched', but very, very morally and strategically wrong?

[tinker3478]

"Bill and Hillary Clinton have been chearleaders of the illegal U.S. war of aggression against Iraq, from the very beginning."

And your source for that is what?

[wvopfor00]

To ketch65, *** Who are you?? Retired mil. Would that be IIS?
Retired mil, so then you are blind to reality? Or just stupid. You sound more like a military deception campaign against the US

[alphaa10-2009]

rkb4762 said, "In 2003, I told some told people that invading a arab country with only 150,000 US troops would be disaster in the long run... and it would take nearly 200,000 or more troops to secure a country of that size. I was called unpatriotic and unsupportive of the president.
---

Clearly, you remain in good and patriotic company. In 2003, Gen. Eric Shinseki counseled the US congress during a pre-Iraq invasion hearing that several hundred thousand occupation troops would be required to stabilize Iraq. Rumsfeld immediately contradicted him in the rudest way, and Shinseki's distinguished military career ended shortly afterward.

Though Rumsfeld is often saluted by the nation's press as the catalyst for reorganization of US strategic forces along a high-tech and nimble posture, it was Shinseki, in fact, who understood and drove that revolution in the US Army.

[alphaa10-2009]

Herr General Reichsmarschall Rumsfeld-- 2
The episode between Rumsfeld and Shinseki was both revealing and unfortunate for this country, and silenced military criticism of Rumsfeld for the next three years. It was the equivalent of a political leader with a minor military rank and experience attained years before (Rumsfeld) dressing down an acknowledged military leader, strategist and thinker (Shinseki)-- a similar thing happened between Hitler and Rommel, with Hitler browbeating Rommel into building Festung Europa, when Rommel wanted anything but to build another Maginot Line.

Inflexible to the end, Rumsfeld finally built his own Maginot Line in Iraq around no more than 150,000 outnumbered, bunkered-down US troops for whom the streets of Baghdad and surrounding cities become more dangerous every day. Had Rumsfeld listened to Shinseki, the various armies of Iraqi resistance would have found it far more difficult to materialize.

[rkb4762]

In 2003, I told some told people that invading a arab country with only 150,000 US troops would be disaster in the long run, Iraq has a culture that differs from ours and it would take nearly 200,000 or more troops to secure a country of that size. I was called unpatriotic and unsupportive of the president. Ummmm, I wonder were my patriotic freinds are right now.

[book54552134]

What a quagmire! What kind of thought process would impel this Administration to invade a Moslem country of 25 million & try to occupy it with 140,000 Christian troops? If the reverse occurred, would the people of this Christian nation put up with an occupation by Moslems? I think not. The same kind of insurgency would happen here. Well, one more big push, huh Dubya?

[feelfree1]

stevex47,

Bill and Hillary Clinton have been chearleaders of the illegal U.S. war of aggression against Iraq, from the very beginning.

Why do you think that Bill could offer a solution to a disasterous policy which he, himself has so eagerly supported?

[stevex47]

Folks on the right are gonna despise this thought, but....the only person I can think of, to somehow find some workable resolution to this disaster I think is Bill Clinton. Obviously, no one on the right has the will or that ability,

[feelfree1]

ketch65,

Good analysis.

Thanks for contributing.