Missiles Destroy Sadr City Command Center

Airstrike Was 55 Yards Away From Hospital; 23 Wounded, Ambulances Destroyed

(AP)  The U.S. military fired guided missiles into the heart of Baghdad's teeming Sadr City slum on Saturday, leveling a building 55 yards away from a hospital and wounding nearly two dozen people.

AP Television News footage showed several ambulances destroyed and on fire, thick black smoke rising from them as firefighters worked to put out the flames.

The strike, made from a ground launcher, took out a militant "command-control center," the U.S. military said. The center was located in the heart of the eight-square-mile neighborhood that is home to about 2.5 million people. Iraqi officials said at least 23 people were wounded, though none of them were patients in the hospital.

The U.S. military blamed the militants for using Iraqi civilians as human shields.

"This is a circumstance where these criminal groups are operating directly out of civilian neighborhoods," military spokeswoman Spc. Megan Burmeister told The Associated Press in an e-mail.

She said it presents a "complex and very difficult" challenge for U.S. forces to strike the militants when they are "putting themselves next to municipal buildings."

Dr. Ali Bustan al-Fartusee, director general of Baghdad's health directorate, told the AP that 23 civilians were wounded in the strike.

He said no patients in the hospital were hurt, but that some of the wounded included civilians outside on their way to visit patients in the hospital. He also said 17 ambulances were damaged or destroyed.

AP Television News footage showed about 100 people milling about in the rubble of the destroyed building. A deep crater was seen just yards from the hospital, which is surrounded by 15-foot-tall concrete blast walls. It appeared that one section of the blast wall was leveled.

Windows were blown out of cars in the hospital's parking lot, but there did not appear to be any damage to the hospital itself.

Shiite extremists are known to have operated in a building next to the hospital, local reporters said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have waged street battles with Shiite militias since late March in Sadr City, the power base of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.

The fighting is part of a 5-week-old crackdown by the Iraqi government and U.S. forces on Shiite militia factions. The clashes have brought deep rifts among Iraq's Shiite majority and have pulled U.S. troops into difficult urban combat.

Militia members have been blamed for firing hundreds of rockets or mortars from Sadr City into the Green Zone, the U.S.-protected area housing the American embassy and much of the Iraqi government. In the past month, more than a dozen people - including two American civilians and soldiers - have been killed inside the zone during the attacks.

In response to the shelling, American and Iraqi troops in recent weeks have moved into Sadr City, hoping to push the militants far enough from the Green Zone so their rockets and mortars would be out of range.

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, shows no indication of easing the pressure on militia groups, including the powerful Mahdi Army led by al-Sadr. Al-Maliki has been seeking to increase leverage on Iran, which is accused of training and arming some Shiite militia groups. Iran denies the claims.

A five-member Iraqi delegation returned from Tehran Saturday from a meeting aimed at halting suspected Iranian aid to militiamen.

Ranking deputy Khalid al-Atiyah said the Iranian government had expressed its readiness to assist the Iraqi government" against the extremists and "in its security measures." He did not elaborate.

During clashes over the past two days in Sadr City, at least 100 people have been killed, Iraqi health officials said.

Also Saturday, the Turkish military claimed air strikes it carried out earlier this week in northern Iraq killed more than 150 Kurdish rebels. The military said it successfully hit all its targets in a three-hour air operation on Mount Qandil early Friday.

The leadership of the Kurdish rebel group is believed to be hiding in the Qandil region - about 60 miles from the Turkish border.

In northern Iraq, Ahmed Danaf, the head of external relations for Kurdish group, claimed in a phone call that the raid killed six members of the Free Life Party, the anti-Iran Kurdish group PEJAK.

The U.S. military also said Saturday that a U.S. soldier died of wounds suffered in a roadside bomb that struck the soldier's vehicle during a combat patrol in eastern Baghdad the day before.

Georgian Defense Ministry spokesman Giga Tatishvili said two servicemen from the ex-Soviet republic were killed and one wounded south of Baghdad on Friday when a parked car bomb exploded. The deaths were the first combat fatalities the nation's military has suffered in Iraq, where it has had a presence since August 2003.

[petro49l]

Qada Iraq and Taliban are definitely gay. They have bodies like dry sticks. There is no reason to hide in ladies'' lingerie. Coalition no fooled by this trick. American Soldiers know enemy.

[ghostdog8]

Sounds like Cristisen was part of an LSD experiment that went terribly wrong!

[speakinup]

veteran72 - The government DID should you filmed footage of the 19 getting on the planes, and you don''t believe it.


Delusional - you are just delusional. And, no, I''m not jealous because you hear the voices.



Prizoshit - I simpley don''t believe a word you say. Period. If what yu were saying were true, it would be on the news.


Oh, wait a minute, that''s right, the news media was paid off.



HA HA Ha Ha ha - you and ''veteran'' are two frauds. And, the simple fact is, you can''t prove otherwise.



But, don''t let it eat you up, ok.

[prinzowhales]

speakingup?...Try the red pill, for once...

[veteran72]

"David Griffin believes this all was totally an inside job - I''ve got to say I think that it was too," said Christison.

Christison initially approached the subject unwilling to even consider that elements of the government could be engaged in such heights of criminality but his research quickly began to change his mind.

"Just about half a year ago it dawned on me that not only was I trying to avoid an issue that might be extraordinarily important - more important than any other issue," said Christison.

"I have since decided that....at least some elements in this US government had contributed in some way or other to causing 9/11 to happen or at least allowing it to happen."

Christison stated that the suspicious collapse of the three buildings, including building 7 which wasn''t hit by a plane, were likely the result of controlled demolitions.

"The reason that the two towers in New York actually collapsed and fell all the way to the ground was controlled explosions rather than just being hit by two airplanes."

"All of the characteristics of these demolitions show that they almost had to have been controlled explosions."


But what does a stupid CIA career guy know anyhow...

[prinzowhales]

speakingup--''One of the nineteen'', what? HIjackers? The government''s own report from their medical examiniers shows no Arabs on Flight 77...All of the passengers were accounted for by some bit of remains save for an infant. There were no remains left over to be hijackers...Are you maintaining, perhaps, that Allah, brought them directly to heaven for a little bouncy-bouncy with the seventy virgins so often mentioned in Neo-Con circles as an explanation for suicidal jihadis?

[prinzowhales]

Posted by speakinup at 06:06 PM : May 04, 2008
---------------------
May I remind you that the lying neo-Scum piece of dreck, Judith Miller wrote for the NEW YORK TIMES... "All the news that is fit to print"...her''s is a name almost synonomous with lying war-mongering propaganda. This is America''s so-called ''Paper of Record.'' I challenge you to find anything at WHAT REALLY HAPPENED that is less credible.

This is the American equivalent to the samizdat that helped bring down the Soviet system...this is an electronic samizdat...no one is asking you to take their word for it alone--do your own research...like you should have done when Judith Miller was feeding you and your fellow ''I want to believe'' Republicans down the yellow brick road to wars of aggression.

You won''t find the mass murderes at Merck supporting this site...or Alex Jones'' sites...You won''t find any of the Federal Reserve banks supporting them...you won''t find corrupt corporatists supporting them...so, I guess they just don''t meet your high standards of credibility...maybe if they included a section on Hollywood starlets and royal marriages, it would seem more credible to you? :)

[veteran72]

A 28-year CIA career man and a former skeptic of alternative 9/11 explanations has gone further than ever before in voicing his convictions that the attacks bore the hallmarks of an inside job and the three buildings in the WTC complex were brought down by controlled demolition.

Bill Christison is a former senior official of the CIA. He was a National Intelligence Officer and the Director of the CIA''s Office of Regional and Political Analysis before his retirement in 1979. Since then he has written numerous articles on U.S. foreign policies.

In Christison''s recent article, Stop Belittling the Theories About September 11, he afforded credibility to the notion that "significant parts" of the official 9/11 story were false and after careful research he concluded that the twin towers and building 7, "were most probably destroyed by controlled demolition charges placed in the buildings.

He''s obviously a Delusional Leftist Hippie Liar....
Oh,....wait a minute,....he''s a respected former career CIA Officer.......HMmmmmmmmmmmmm....

[prinzowhales]

Here is a BBC article on the living hijackers...Is there any other mainstream news network you would find to be as ''credible''?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1559151.stm

There are elements within the US government that conspired to carry out the attack on 9-11. It never crossed my mind that a plane accidentally hit the World Trade Center...not with modern avionics on a clear, beautiful day like 9-11-01. Bush was involved, of course. He sat in that classroom for twenty minutes--he heard about the first strike before he came into the classroom and the SS had contact with the FAA from the beginning. He fought any investigation for over a year!

As to your accusation that I am trying to destroy the country by pointing the finger at a corrupt and contemptible mass-murdering terrorist dog--George W. Bush...I think it is you who are doing your level best to destroy the nation by ignoring the festering evil in Washington...putting Bush and his war based on lies above Constitution and Republic... following this internationalist, Israel-first corruptionist off a cliff....

[veteran72]

Posted by speakinup at 05:49 PM : May 04, 2008
----------
Want cut columns...here are cut columns hundreds of feet below the explosions that occured when the planes slammed into the towers causing fires that were insufficient to melt the steel at the implact point much less cut steel support beams hundreds of feet below the fire...

http://whatreallyhappened.com
/wtc_charges.html

That is the reality...


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by Prinzowhales at 05:59 PM : May 04, 2008
+ report abuse

You could show these idiots filmed footage of Mossad Agents planting the explosive charges, backed up by FBI investigations, and they''d say it wasn''t true.
You can''t fix gullable, blind, delusional or stupid.

[veteran72]

veteran72 - being a Christian doesn''''t mean being perfect.

Only one being has that privilege.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by speakinup at 05:50 PM : May 04, 2008
+ report abuse

According to singinrick, HE is the only teller of truth, because he owns Jesus, and no one else holding a contrary view point could possibly be either christian or recieve their guidance from god.
So if you happen to be contacted by Jesus, and he says Ricky is totally full of it, it can only be someone else, as Jesus would never contradict the word of Ricky. He has a god complex, and is really quite disturbed. He should recieve immediate assistance for his mental delusions, before he hurts someone or himself.

[speakinup]

Oh, Pa-leeeze, Prinzowhales.

Does ANYONE believe a website that starts with, whatreallyhappened ?


If I were so motivated, I could make a website that would make everyone in the world believe your father was one of the 19.


The fact is, in order for something on the web to be believeable, it has to come from a known source. Your ilk have figured this out, and have coupled it with the fact that most people will believe almost anything that looks official.


You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time.



I told you before and I''ll say it again - you have no credibility with me Prizowales. So, don''t bother, save your typing fingers.


Yes, indeed, in your case I HAVE made up my mind, and I don''t need any more of your ''facts''.

[prinzowhales]

Posted by speakinup at 05:49 PM : May 04, 2008
----------
Want cut columns...here are cut columns hundreds of feet below the explosions that occured when the planes slammed into the towers causing fires that were insufficient to melt the steel at the implact point much less cut steel support beams hundreds of feet below the fire...

http://whatreallyhappened.com/wtc_charges.html

That is the reality...

[speakinup]

veteran72 - being a Christian doesn''t mean being perfect.

Only one being has that privilege.

[speakinup]

Prinzowhales - I guess I''ve wronged you again. But, why would you care.

Somehow with all the ''regime'' comments about President Bush, insistence of beams being cut by the US government in the towers, & the insistence that several of the 19 are still alive, I''ve just had too hard a time believing you are sane.

I''ve written you off as someone not credible, so why bother reading your comments anymore. Not a slam - just a factoid.

Feelfree - yeah - no big loss there. Perhaps it''s his turn to nationalize something in Venezuela.

[veteran72]

Watch who you''''re talking to there pal. Some of us have already served.



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Posted by libagenda at 03:58 PM : May 04, 2008
+ report abuse

Your a lying POS. The closest you ever got to combat was when you were wrestling with your boyfriend last night. You know squat about this War or ANY War.
You never answered my question: Who would Jesus Bomb??

[veteran72]

Sorry, I don''''t live in the "Politically correct" world. I can spot out evil movements when I see them.
------------------------------------------------------

Posted by libagenda at 04:21 PM : May 04, 2008
+ report abuse

And yet, you miss the worst of them everytime you look in the mirror. singinrick = Satan

[prinzowhales]

speakingup--And I thought there would never be anyone clever enough to see through my support for Ron Paul, the Constitution and the Republic...my support of sound money, an end to corruption, NAFTA, the current system of so-called "free trade", as well as to try to halt the oligarchy''s march toward a new world order as an attempt to "destroy our country."

And, speaking of FeelFree...I haven''t seen a post in a while...

[j-whitman]

Gotta go tend the tomato''s -- Have fun

[speakinup]

j-whitman - yeah some times they can be fun, but I''m not into name calling for its own sake.

Some people on this site, like yourself, I don''t agree with often. BUT, I don''t think you are doing it for the sake of trying to put the US on the wrong track. That sort of thing is nefarious to me. Something that is inexcuseable in my opinion.

That''s why I feel ok about you, in spite of not getting along with you.

Then there are some people like feelfree and Prinzowales, who seem to like to spout anti-american rhetoric for its own sake. I find them not only wrong, but with deliberal malice in mind.

I beieve both of them want to destroy our country. I see them as interlopers passing themselves off as US citizens in the conversations.