Three U.S. Soldiers Die In Anbar Province

Three American soldiers have been killed in combat operations in the western province of Anbar, the U.S. military said Friday.

The military statement says only that the three died while conducting combat operations in Anbar Province on Thursday, reports CBS News correspondent Cami McCormick. Earlier this week in Ramadi, also in Anbar, U.S. forces came under attack from insurgents and a lengthy gun battle followed. Warplanes were brought in to target several buildings there.

The U.S. military also said it was investigating reports of civilian casualties in fighting in Ramadi, the volatile capital of Anbar province.

Meanwhile, a suspected al Qaeda-linked insurgent leader accused of financing attacks and recruiting fighters was captured in southern Iraq, Iraqi police said Friday.

In other developments:

U.S. troops arrested the son of Iraq's top Shiite politician Friday as he returned to the country from Iran, Shiite officials said. There was no word on why Amar al-Hakim, son of political leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, was taken into custody, but U.S. authorities have complained in the past about Iranian weapons sales and financial aid to major Shiite parties in Iraq. Al-Hakim was released 12 hours later. The U.S. ambassador apologized for the arrest.

McCormick reports from Diyala Province that U.S. and Iraqi forces are facing increasing attacks in what she describes as one of the most dangerous places in Iraq, while the military focus remains on the Baghdad security crackdown.

Vice President Dick Cheney refused Friday to take back his charge that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's opposition to President Bush's Iraq war buildup is playing into the hands of al Qaeda. "If you're going to advocate a course of action that basically is withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, then you don't get to just do the fun part of that, that says, 'We'll, we're going to get out,' and appeal to your constituents on that basis," Cheney said.

A U.S. soldier who fought in Iraq has been sentenced to 100 years in prison for the gang rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and killing of her family. CBS News correspondent Jim Krasula (audio) reports Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, 24, wept but said he couldn't explain why he did it.

Sunni Arab clerics on Friday demanded justice for two women who claim they were sexually assaulted by the Shiite-dominated security forces, and several insurgent groups called for revenge attacks. Sheik Sameer al-Obeidi charged that the allegations showed that "gross human rights violations" were marring a major security sweep in Baghdad.

Issa Abdul-Razzaq Ahmed, the suspected al Qaeda leader, who was detained during a raid Thursday on a house in central Basra, has been traveling to neighboring countries to collect funds for militant operations in Iraq, provincial police commander Gen. Mohammed al-Moussawi said.

He also said the suspect, a 22-year-old Sunni, was on the Interior Ministry's most-wanted list and was accused of being a major figure in recruiting fighters. Police also found lists with the names of other wanted militants, maps and propaganda CDs.

"Working under the guise of a businessman, he has been shuttling between Syria and the United Arab Emirates to collect funds for the terrorists in Iraq," al-Moussawi said.

The announcement of the capture took on added significance, coming just days after Britain said it would withdraw 1,600 troops from the area in the coming months with hopes the Iraqis can take over their own security.

Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, and the region around it are predominantly Shiite and have seen little of the sectarian violence that has beset the capital, although rival Shiite militant factions often clash and Sunni insurgents maintain a presence.

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[lars008-2009]

During WW II, the Japanese were searching for a way to demoralize the American forces that they faced. Their psychological warfare experts came up with a message that they thought would work well.

They gave the script to their famous broadcaster, "Tokyo Rose," and every day she would broadcast this same message packaged in various ways, hoping to have an impact on American GI morale. What was the message?
It had three main points:
1. Your president is lying to you.
2. This war is illegal.
3. You cannot win the war.

Sound familiar? the Democratic Party has picked up the same message and is broadcasting it to civilians domestic and abroad, and to our troops and our enemies. The only difference is that they claim to support our troops before they demoralize them.

Come to think of it, Tokyo Rose used to tell the troops that she was on their side.

I am often struck by how similar the rhetoric from the left is to the rhetoric from our enemies. Consider this transcript of a taped al qaeda message:
http://memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=802

[randalds]

Their blood is on Bush's hands, just as with the 3000+ before them and just as much as he'd put a gun to their heads and murdered them in cold blood. Bush had better start praying that there isn't a God, because if there is his soul, along with Cheney's and all of their supporters, will roast in hell forever. That thought is one of the only incentives I have for ever getting religious again, just to know he'll be tortured for all eternity for his murders. And he deserves so much worse then that.

[tbweb]

We need another surge in Anbar Province.
Let's send 20,000 more troops there.
Posted by jerr11 at 12:29 AM : Feb 24, 2007

--jerr11

Fine no problem! But why does it have to be 20,000 American troops? Like Obama said let it be 20,000 Australian troops! Why can't it be 20,000 Russian or Chinese troops? Why isn't the Iraq and Iran problems viewed in Russia and China with the same urgency as it is in the U.S.? These are world issues and problems, not just U.S. issues and problems! Russia and China claim they don't want Iran to have nukes but only pay lip service to it, they don't take any action and in fact Russia is arming Iran with advanced weapons! Maybe the U.S. should arm Chechnia with advanced weapons to make the point!

[jerr11]

We need another surge in Anbar Province.

Let's send 20,000 more troops there.

[tbweb]

In democracies the people are the boss and the Government is the employee. PM Blair is withdrawing British troops from Iraq because his boss, the British people request this action. The Bush administration no matter how well meaning seems to have forgotton who the boss is, but that's okay because I have a feeling in the next election the boss will remind the Bush administration again like it did in the last election!

[bildooreilly]

Surely these military commanders know that if you announce a crackdown for 2-3 weeks in advance that the guerilla fighters aren't going to hang around to put up a big unwinnable last stand.

[bildooreilly]

These commanders and the media aren't very smart, earlier this week they had an article about how easy the security crackdown in baghdad was going.. No shiite, they announced it for 2-3 weeks beforehand, then they act really surprised that most of the fighters have fled and it flares up elsewhere. It would take at least 2-300,000 more troops to stabilize that country and even that probably wouldn't work. The British who created most of the phony intel that Colin Powell used in his speech got a bunch of their men trapped in iraq and killed the last time good ole mother england tried occupying Iraq, there's still a bunch of british buried near baghdad, the british were even using chemical weapons on entire villages back then, that's why the british stayed in the south close to the ports one of the few escape routes out of there. England isn't our ally never were and never will be, if you go back and look at Colin Powells speech it was almost entirely taken from a british intelligence dossier that the British MI6 plagarized word for word off of a thesis by a college student written before the first gulf war. Go look it up...

[dallison7]

Terrapin78, feelfree1, j-whitman

Pathetic losers!
Posted by US_Infidel

NO!! Those three young people are the ones who lost!! Along with over three thousand others!! America has lost. What makes someone like you tick? Have you no compassion? Have you no common sense? HAVE YOU O SOUL? Indeed, you are the loser!

[randalds]

Whack a mole. We concentrate troops one place and violence pops up somewhere else. Why? Because we are fighting against a popular insurgency with an occupying army. It has never succeeded in the past and it won't succeed this time. The invasion of Iraq was one of the deadliest and most ignorant military actions in world history. Not surprising considering the idiot that did it.

[us_infidel]

Terrapin78, feelfree1, j-whitman

Pathetic losers!