LesDennis
05-05-2006, 16:45
Vorige topic verdween als sneeuw voor de zon, hierbij nogmaals het nieuws. Another day at the office... Three U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq blast (http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/05/05/iraq.main/index.html) BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A roadside bomb killed three U.S. soldiers Friday south of Baghdad, the U.S. military. The troops were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Babil province, a military statement said. Two U.S. soldiers also were [/B]killed Thursday in a roadside blast in south-central Baghdad, the military said. The number of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq war stands at 2,415. In other violence, three insurgents were killed Thursday in fighting with American soldiers near Samarra, north of the capital, the U.S. military said. A citizen was wounded during the firefight. The fighting got under way when troops from the Task Force Band of Brothers apprehended three "known" bomb placers, the military said in a statement. From a rooftop, people wielding small arms fired at the troops as they were taking way the detainees, officials said. "The troops suppressed the rooftop fire and entered and killed the three attackers from the rooftop," the statement said. Also Thursday, a female bomber removed an explosives-laden vest after being denied access to a Baghdad courthouse and left it in a bag outside the building, where it exploded and killed at least nine people, a witness told the Iraqi Interior Ministry. The blast, outside the eastern Baghdad courthouse on busy Palestine Street, wounded 46 others, the ministry said. The violence took place as a report from retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey said the American strategy in Iraq is "painfully but gradually succeeding" and noted that U.S. troops will be needed in Iraq for another three to five years. (Watch new ideas on a U.S. exit strategy -- 2:11) Elsewhere Thursday in Baghdad, Iraqi army Brig. Gen. Mohammed Abdul Latif was gunned down in the western Yarmouk neighborhood as he drove to work, the Interior Ministry said. In Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's ancestral homeland, police said they found 16 bodies Thursday. All were shot in the head, and police said they were unable to identify the bodies. Also in Tikrit, gunmen shot and killed a police officer in a drive-by shooting, police said. Another police officer was wounded. In Ramadi, west of the capital, eight insurgents were killed in a firefight with American Marines, the U.S. military said. In Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, police found two bodies dumped in plastic bags near a bridge Thursday, a police spokesman said. The bodies have not been identified. Retired general: 'Race against time' McCaffrey's seven-page memorandum said that victory in Iraq is a 10-year task and that the United States "will remain in a serious crisis in Iraq during the coming 24 months." "There is no reason why the U.S. cannot achieve our objectives in Iraq," he wrote after an April visit with troops. But winning the war will take more money for reconstruction, a greater commitment by U.S. agencies beyond the Pentagon and more funding for the Iraqi police, among other recommendations -- and McCaffrey questioned whether the United States is willing to make those commitments. "We have few alternatives to the current U.S. strategy, which is painfully but gradually succeeding," he wrote. "This is now a race against time. Do we have the political will. Do we have the military power; will we spend the resources required to achieve our aims?" McCaffrey led the Army's 24th Infantry Division in the Persian Gulf War and was the anti-drug czar in the Clinton administration. He is a professor at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, and an analyst for NBC News. He prepared the memo, dated April 25, for faculty and students at West Point. The Pentagon had no comment. McCaffrey concludes the Iraqi army is "real, growing and willing to fight." But, he said, it will need two to five more years before it is capable of standing on its own. The Iraqis are badly equipped, lacking artillery, armored vehicles, air support and communications, he said. McCaffrey wrote that most U.S. combat troops could be withdrawn from Iraq within three to five years, but he said the country would need $5 billion to $10 billion a year in economic assistance. The memo came to light as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld faces a wave of criticism from other retired officers over his handling of the conflict. McCaffrey has been among those critics but hasn't called for the secretary's resignation, as others have done. Laat de dansende bananen maar weer komen. :(