5 Americans Dead In Baghdad Copter Crash
Actress Nicole Kidman poses for photographers during a photo call for Hemmingway and Gellhorn at the 65th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Friday, May 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau) / Lionel Cironneau
A U.S. security company helicopter crashed as it flew over a dangerous Sunni neighborhood in the central Baghdad where insurgents and Iraqi security troops fought a prolonged gunbattle, and a U.S. official said five American civilians on board were killed.
A senior Iraqi military official said Tuesday the aircraft was shot down, but this was disputed by a U.S. military official in Washington. The Iraqi said the helicopter was hit by a machine gunner over the Fadhil neighborhood on the east side of the Tigris River, while the American official said there was no indication in initial reports that the aircraft, owned by Blackwater USA, had been shot down.
A U.S. official in Baghdad had said there was no information to substantiate reports that the bodies had been shot.
All the officials demanded anonymity because the details had not been made public. The Americans said they did not know what caused the aircraft to crash.
Blackwater USA confirmed that five Americans employed by the North Carolina-based company as security professionals were killed. The statement from spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell did not provide identities or any details of the fighting.
The New York Times reported the helicopter went down as it came under attack and plummeted to the pavement through a tangle of electrical wires, but it was unclear if the crash resulted from gunfire, the wires or an effort to land.
Quoting unnamed American officials, the newspaper said the helicopter's four-man crew was killed along with a gunner on a second Blackwater helicopter. It said one military official said that at least four of the victims had suffered gunshot wounds to the head, raising the prospect that some of them had been shot on the ground.
In other developments:
The Army general who would carry out President George W. Bush's U.S. troop buildup in Iraq urged patience Tuesday and predicted "tough days" ahead. "None of this will be rapid," Lt. Gen. David Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "The way ahead will be neither quick nor easy. There undoubtedly will be tough days."
ABC news anchor Chris Cuomo was unhurt Tuesday after the convoy of military police he was riding with in Iraq was struck by a roadside bomb. Some of the soldiers suffered minor injuries in the attack, ABC said. The convoy of four heavily armored Humvees was going to check a report of a burning vehicle in northwest Baghdad when booby-trapped bodies left by the side of the road exploded.
The prosecution in the trial of Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid played more tapes Tuesday in which a man it identified as the defendant called Iraq's current president "wicked" and "a pimp," and vowed not to leave alive anyone who spoke Kurdish. President Jalal Talabani was a Kurdish guerrilla leader when the recording allegedly was made of al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali" for allegedly using chemical weapons against the Kurds in the 1980s.
The U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday that men allegedly wearing uniforms of the Iraqi security forces abducted a group of 17 Palestinian refugees from a building rented by the agency in Baghdad. "UNHCR is very concerned and is seeking information on the Palestinians' whereabouts from Iraqi authorities," the agency's spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters. Some of the Palestinians were later released.
Increasing the size of the Army, strained by America's two ongoing wars, will cost an estimated $70 billion, a top Army general said Tuesday. And if yet another conflict were to develop before the force can be bolstered, it would take longer to fight and cost more American casualties than otherwise might be expected, said Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, a deputy chief of staff.
An e-mail exchange interpreted by backers of the military as an affront to U.S. troops in Iraq has brought a deluge of criticism to a local company after circulating across the Internet.
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. A senior Iraqi military official said Tuesday the aircraft was shot down, but this was disputed by a U.S. military official in Washington. The Iraqi said the helicopter was hit by a machine gunner over the Fadhil neighborhood on the east side of the Tigris River, while the American official said there was no indication in initial reports that the aircraft, owned by Blackwater USA, had been shot down.
A U.S. official in Baghdad had said there was no information to substantiate reports that the bodies had been shot.
All the officials demanded anonymity because the details had not been made public. The Americans said they did not know what caused the aircraft to crash.
Blackwater USA confirmed that five Americans employed by the North Carolina-based company as security professionals were killed. The statement from spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell did not provide identities or any details of the fighting.
The New York Times reported the helicopter went down as it came under attack and plummeted to the pavement through a tangle of electrical wires, but it was unclear if the crash resulted from gunfire, the wires or an effort to land.
Quoting unnamed American officials, the newspaper said the helicopter's four-man crew was killed along with a gunner on a second Blackwater helicopter. It said one military official said that at least four of the victims had suffered gunshot wounds to the head, raising the prospect that some of them had been shot on the ground.
In other developments:
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Those who want to boost troop levels should recall what Gen. Eric Shinseki predicted-- something on the order of hundreds of thousands of troops would be required.
The picture of chaos after US units entered
Baghdad in 2003 has been the same since-- local armies and militias proliferate in a running civil war, partly reminiscent of Somalia.
More than ever, the case is clear for partition of Iraq. This was never a nation, but a political conglomerate created after WWI, and maintained haphazardly ever since with CIA and other intervventions.
"Decisions about what animals go into cattle feed are made by the Food and Drug Administration, which last week banned feeding cow blood, chicken waste and restaurant scraps to cattle, but continued with rendered hogs and chickens. Industry critics objected, saying hogs and chickens eat rendered cattle, so the disease could pass through."
NY Times Feb 5 2004
That's mad-cow disease being referred to by the way.
Awarenes of FACTS actually aids in developing a WORLD-VIEW with some chance of correspondence with REALITY.
If there is anyone in the entire Iraq debacle that I have great difficulty feeling sorry for, it is the mercenaries that work for private "contractors%u201D like Blackwater and Wackenhut.
These security "contractors" amount to U.S. homegrown grown death-squads. But they don't do their killing based on ideology. They do it for money, and they are available to the highest bidder.
These U.S. subsidized killers for hire represent a real danger to almost everyone on the planet. We are allowing the buildup of private armies who will kill for whomever ponies their fee.
I won't celebrate over human death, and this helicopter crew most likely had some friends, and/or family, but I will say- the fewer of these "contractors", the better, as far as I'm concerned.
The Iraqi people, along with everyone else on the planet, have every right to defend themselves against these %u201CMade in USA%u201D death-squads for hire. What a contemptible way to make a living.
Also, I didn't catch how it is that cattle, which are herbivores, eat the dead hogs. Clarify, please.
Finally, mention something that can be even remotely blamed on Christians (who are not all Baptists) and PlowHandle starts slobbering and typing with his/her fists. Since you are such an avid reader, perhaps you should find out what careful Christian thinkers actually say on some of these issues, rather than dismissing them out-of-hand. At the minimum, you'll find out how to spell 'home-schooled.'
It is part of our whole fantasy as a nation, that we are so good at everything, that we are world leaders, that we are right and everyone else is wrong. Well, when fantasy meets reality, people get knocked in the head. We're in for some hard knocks.
Let's go back to doing what we're good at. We're the dumbest country in the world, we have the lowest standards, we are the greediest with the shortest attention span, and the most ignorant immigrants. That's us. Disneyland and hot dogs. Sanctimonious right-wing Christians. Tired old transvestites with sagging falsies strutting down Hollywood boulevard. America. Ugly mile after mile of suburbia, packed with polluting grid-locked huge SUVs, interupted by pretentious "upscale" strip malls. Wasted, pesticide-soaked prairies ripe with genetically engineered corn, fed to hogs, eaten by hogs, dead hogs fed to cattle, eaten by two-legged cattle and hogs.
What about this makes us look like we can conquer the world? Our war movies? Maybe Will Smith can fight our next war with lasers, or maybe Gawd will do it from the sky, or Bruce Willis the renegade cop can get those terrorists, the ones from TV.