Some Allied Troops, Planes Missing

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday some American soldiers are missing in the fighting in Iraq and that there is a report of a missing allied aircraft.

Rumsfeld said in a television interview he could not provide any information about a missing aircraft. In Baghdad, security officers searched the banks of the Tigris River, apparently looking for one or more pilots who may have bailed out of a downed plane.

Iraqi troops scoured the area and fired shots into bushes along the river banks, after witnesses said they had seen parachutes fall nearby.

Police also set fire to the brush and fired shots near the base of the al-Tahrir bridge. Small boats patrolled the river, searching the murky brown waters. Police and security cut off roads leading into the area.

Crowds and television cameras gathered quickly, and hundreds of civilians tried to join the search.

So far, nothing has been found.

Rumsfeld suggested that the search in Baghdad was staged.

He also acknowledged there are some American troops who are missing in Iraq. He noted that under the Geneva Convention governing prisoners of war, "It's illegal to do things to POWs that are humiliating to those prisoners."

A U.S. Patriot missile may have shot down another British Royal Air Force plane that was reported missing near Kuwait on Sunday, U.S. and British officials said.

In another Sunday morning television interview, U.S. Air Force Gen.
Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there were fewer than 10 U.S. soldiers unaccounted for in southern Iraq.