Saddam Bodyguard Nabbed
U.S. forces have captured one of Saddam Hussein's former bodyguards and an Iraqi general who was a senior member of Saddam's party, but lost three soldiers from various causes Tuesday.
The arrests were made in a series of raids on the outskirts of Saddam's northern Iraqi hometown of Tirkit. A total of 14 men have been detained.
The total American death toll in the war rose to 265 after one American died in a bombing, another in an accident, and a third in his sleep Tuesday Five soldiers were wounded in two attacks and troops killed an Iraqi fighter.
The U.S. soldier killed Tuesday morning was riding in a Humvee in Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad. A military spokesman said the soldier's convoy was hit by three roadside bombs wired to exploded one after another. Two soldiers were wounded.
In Mosul, in the far north of the country, the military reported a soldier died when his Humvee collided with a taxi. A soldier died in his sleep at a U.S. base in Ramadi and his body was discovered in his bunk at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday.
In other developments:
The official, who had been briefed on the investigation's findings and discussed them on condition of anonymity, said members of the 3rd Infantry Division fired on what they believed to be an enemy spotter on a balcony of the Palestine Hotel, which was the main hotel used by war correspondents.
The soldiers apparently did not know that the building housed international journalists. At the time, the U.S. forces were advancing on a bridge over the Tigris River under heavy resistance.
The Bush administration is offering only hazy details of war and reconstruction costs so far, and that is upsetting Republican as well as Democratic lawmakers.
President Bush and other administration officials have refused to provide projections, saying too much is unpredictable.
"I think they're fearful of having Congress say, 'Oh, my God, this thing is going to be very costly,"' said Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that controls foreign aid.
Brookings Institution fellows Lael Brainard and Michael O'Hanlon said in a Financial Times article this month that military and reconstruction costs could be from $300 billion to $450 billion.
Taxpayers for Common Sense said postwar costs over the next decade could range from $114 billion to $465 billion. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences projected 10-year expenses from $106 billion to $615 billion.
Even the cost of the ongoing U.S. military campaign remains clouded in confusing numbers. Defense Department officials have said U.S. operations are costing about $3.9 billion monthly. But that figure excludes indirect expenses like replacing damaged equipment and munitions expended in combat.
In al-Shumayt, just north of Tikrit, guerrillas fired rocket-propelled grenades and detonated at least one homemade bomb, wounding three American soldiers, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Bill MacDonald said. All three were in stable condition, he said.
In central Baghdad, two grenades were thrown from a car at a U.S. military checkpoint; soldiers returned fire, killing one Iraqi, witnesses said.