BAGHDAD, Sept. 7, 2007
7 U.S. Soldiers Killed In Iraq
Separately, Top General Estimates When U.S. Should Begin Drawing Down Troops
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Residents of the Washash section in western Baghdad gathered in the streets Sept. 6, 2007, to inspect the damage after a raid by U.S. forces. (AP)
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Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, chairman of the Iraqi Security Forces Independent Assessment Commission, right, discusses the commission's report during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 6, 2007. Joining Jones, from left are, former Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre, retired Gen. George Joulwan. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)
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A U.S. soldier secures an area from a helicopter carrying U.S. military and Iraqi Government officials for a meeting with tribal leaders to discuss cooperation and security matters at Patrol Base Murray south of Baghdad, Iraq on Monday, Sept. 3, 2007. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
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A man rushes an injured child into the hospital in Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2007. The child was injured after a roadside bomb exploded on the fringes of the capital's Shiite slum of Sadr City. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
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Special Report The Road Ahead Katie Couric reports from Iraq on the future of U.S. involvement there.
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Interactive Battle For Iraq The government, the insurgency, key players, background and photos.
U.S. military officials Friday announced the deaths of four U.S. Marines, in fighting in Anbar province, and separately, the deaths of three other American soldiers, members of Task Force Lightning, killed by a roadside bomb in Ninevah province.
All of the casualties were on Thursday, according to U.S. military officials who say the four Marines assigned to Multi National Force-West were killed while conducting combat operations in a predominantly Sunni area west of Baghdad that has seen a recent drop in violence.
President Bush, meanwhile, says he is confident of success in Iraq.
Speaking in Sydney, Australia, Friday to a business audience at the Asia-Pacific summit, President Bush said there has been progress in Anbar Province and it is being replicated elsewhere. Mr. Bush also said increasing security in Iraq creates conditions that allow reconciliation.
On Monday, the U.S. lead commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, is to present a long-anticipated progress report to Congress. Previewing that, Petraeus tells the Boston Globe he'll recommend starting a gradual drawdown of U.S. forces in the spring, when the extra troops of the U.S. surge end their current tours.
The number of U.S. troops in Iraq has climbed to a record high of 168,000, and is moving toward a peak of 172,000 in the coming weeks - a level that could extend into December, a senior military official said Thursday.
Maj. Gen. Richard Sherlock, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the increase is the result of troop rotations, as several brigades overlap while they move in and out of the war zone. Previously officials had predicted the number could go up to about 171,000.
Early Thursday in Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi troops backed by attack aircraft clashed with suspected Shiite militiamen, bombing houses in pre-dawn raids and battling more than a dozen snipers on rooftops. Residents and police said at least 14 people were killed.
The fighting occurred in a Mahdi Army stronghold of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who had ordered his militia not to carry out any more attacks for up to six months. The U.S. military stressed the raid targeted breakaway factions that remain violent partly as a way of bullying minority Sunnis out of Baghdad.
The clashes reinforced the obstacles to U.S. goals posed by the increasingly volatile Shiite militias amid signs that infighting within Iraq's dominant religious sect is on the rise, just days before a key progress report in Washington on the war.
"The Iraqi parties are quarreling over power and the people are dying," said one Baghdad resident, standing next to a hole in his roof and waving a piece of shrapnel he found after Thursday's raid. "We are fed up."
Video from APTN shows houses with their roofs caved in, and others completely destroyed.
U.S. officials say American troops in several raids north of Baghdad Thursday also targeted Sunni militants linked to al Qaeda in Iraq, killing six suspected insurgents and detaining 25, the military said.
Bombings, shootings and mortar attacks left at least 28 Iraqis dead nationwide, including 18 bullet-riddled bodies that turned up in Baghdad and south of the capital - apparent victims of so-called sectarian death squads usually run by militia fighters.
After a period of relative calm, recent days have seen an uptick in violence.
The Iraqi government, meanwhile, called a critical independent U.S. assessment of its security posture unacceptable interference in its affairs.
The study, released Wednesday and led by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, found that Iraq's security forces will be unable to take control of the country in the next 18 months. It said the Iraqi National Police is so rife with corruption it should be scrapped entirely.
The assessment is expected to factor heavily into Congress' debate on the war, with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and top commander Gen. Petraeus due to begin hearings on Monday.
Yassin Majid, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said "it is not the duty of the independent committee to ask for changes at the Interior Ministry, especially when it comes to security apparatus."
"This is an Iraqi affair, and we will not accept interference by anyone in such work, whether the Congress or others," Majid told The Associated Press by telephone. "The report is inaccurate and not official and we consider it interference in our internal affairs."
Majid also stressed that al-Maliki's government had fired some members of security agencies over corruption charges and links to militias and had extended that policy to other agencies.
"The al-Maliki government will do this with all state agencies. We will not take dictation from reports," he said.
Last week, al-Sadr said he ordered his Mahdi Army to halt all attacks to give him time to restructure the militia. The announcement appeared aimed at distancing himself from suspected Iranian-backed factions he can no longer control.
The U.S. military has welcomed the Mahdi Army cease-fire but kept up operations targeting what it calls rogue elements of the militia that it says are continuing violence, including attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.
"The multinational force continues to stand with the government of Iraq in welcoming the commitment by Muqtada al-Sadr to stop attacks by his followers," the military said in a statement on Thursday's raid. "However, a few attacks on coalition forces and innocent Iraqis have continued. Our assumption is that these groups are not honoring Sadr's orders and thus will not be subject to the restraint we have observed for those who are responding to Sadr's orders."
The operation in the western Baghdad area of Washash involved Iraqi and U.S. special forces acting on a tip against a Shiite cell accused of attacking local police and engaging in extortion as well as execution-style killings of Sunnis, the military said.
The troops called for air strikes after coming under fire from more than a dozen snipers on the rooftops of surrounding buildings.
The military reported that four buildings were damaged, "including two enemy strongholds that sustained major damage and two surrounding buildings that sustained moderate damage." No casualties were mentioned in the statement.
Residents reported hearing explosions at about 3 a.m. that persisted for nearly an hour.
A police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity for his own safety, said U.S. helicopters had attacked the area, killing 14 civilians and wounding 10. There was confusion at the scene, however, as some residents said they thought it had been a mortar attack and said 27 people had been killed.
In other developments:
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- Lars,,, Take a handfull of prozac,,, several vicodin,,, 2 limes & a coconut,,, shake em all up & drink it all down ----- Call me in the morning & I''ll lead you to the recruiting office.
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- War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. John Stuart Mill
It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it. Robert E. Lee
A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war. Simone Weil
If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. Thomas Paine
Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. Winston Churchill
One ought never to turn one''s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Winston Churchill - Reply to this comment
- We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. Ben Franklin
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Ben Franklin
We make war that we may live in peace. Aristotle
It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war. John F. Kennedy
There''s a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasn''t a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature. Barbara Kingsolver
They have not wanted Peace at all; they have wanted to be spared war -- as though the absence of war was the same as peace. Dorothy Thompson
There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy. George Washington
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. John Adams - Reply to this comment
- So, if tanker mentioned the president in HIS oath, he is not an officer.
Posted by torocaca at 09:37 PM : Sep 07, 2007
There was some other as*shole here awhile back who claimed to be an officer, but had noting but put downs directed at Noncoms and couldn''t seem to remember what he did in the Army. Or was that speakinup? It gets so hard to keep track of the BS''ers in here sometimes. Personally I think it was swingingdick in "uniform". Any officer who didn''t realize that his or her NCO''s were their only chance in the military either was a flop and was kicked out or got fragged and is dead. The NCO''s are not just the backbone of the service, they ARE the service. They run it. This guy sounds more like a Frank Burns kind of officer, if he ever served at all. - Reply to this comment
- 7 more corpses to mark his great Presidential library at Southern Methodist Unversity!
Yes, keep the war going for as long as possible, doesn''t matter how many Americans have to die in the process.
The lives of these expendable volunteer army recruits are a small price to pay for his legacy and his place in history.
Brilliant strategy!
Heckuva job, Bush! - Reply to this comment
- It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt
Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger. (1894) Theodore Roosevelt
To sit home, read one''s favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men''s doing. - The Outlook December 21, 1895 Theodore Roosevelt - Reply to this comment
- torocaca,,,, I really doesn''t matter anyway,, This is the White House who has nullified every pledge we take, even the one in grade school ---- They insist a pledge is only good if given in a court of law
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- torocaca,,, What diferance does it matter anymore ?? ---- This is the White House who says a Pledge is only valid if given in a court of Law...... Wich now nullifies every pledge we take.
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- If your moronic *** is intelligent enough to read...pay particular attention to line 3...
"I DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR (OR AFFIRM) THAT I WILL SUPPORT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC; THAT I WILL BEAR TRUE FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE TO THE SAME; AND THAT I WILL OBEY THE ORDERS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE ORDERS OF THE OFFICERS APPOINTED OVER ME, ACCORDING TO REGULATIONS AND THE UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE. SO HELP ME GOD."
And I am proud to have served 7 years of active duty...2 and half in combat...to defend your liberal mouth saying that I have never served in the military. I am proud to continue serving bleed heart liberals who only slam us servicemen and women for doing the brave job that we do. Keep it up bozo....you are only making yourself look stupid saying BS like that.
Posted by tankersmash at 03:59 PM : Sep 07, 2007
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LOL!! Line 3 is in the Oath of Enlistment for ENLISTED personnel but NOT in the Oath of Allegiance for OFFICERS.
So, if tanker mentioned the president in HIS oath, he is not an officer.
Ref: www.conservativeusa.org/oathsofoffice.htm - Reply to this comment
- IMO, the Iraq invasion was NOT simply a mistake. It was a deliberate, pre 911, planned action for reasons unrelated to any war on terrorism. Posted by jn122736 at 02:58 PM : Sep 07, 2007
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According to some of Bush''s ex-cabinet members, planning for the Iraq invasion started during Bush''s first few days in office. - Reply to this comment
