Posted on 11/28/2003 7:32:36 PM PST by dighton
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A day after President Bush ‘s surprise visit to Baghdad, a U.S. soldier was killed Friday when guerrillas shelled a military base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
Meanwhile, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jack Reed arrived in Baghdad on Friday, saying it isn’t too late to bring the United Nations back to Iraq.
Clinton and Reed said the expense and political burden in administering Iraq would be made easier with the U.N.’s stamp of legitimacy and help in transferring power to Iraqis.
“I’m a big believer that we ought to internationalize this, but it will take a big change in our administration’s thinking,” the former first lady said. “I don’t see that it’s forthcoming.”
Both senators cautioned that the Bush administration’s new plans to speed up the transfer of power to an Iraqi government are risky, given the country’s political and social upheaval.
Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, said a “critical factor” for coalition authorities was securing the blessing of Iraq’s majority Shiite Muslim community, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, who has criticized the plan.
Al-Sistani, whose opinion is crucial to the success of any political plan in Iraq, has said in recent days he wants an elected Iraqi provisional government instead of one chosen through regional caucuses.
“We’re caught in a dilemma, possibly of our own making,” Reed said. “A quick, hasty election might bring to power a person who doesn’t share the values we’re trying to encourage. But the more we wait, the more it looks like an occupation.”
Clinton said the main purpose of her trip was to show support for U.S. troops.
“I wanted to come to Iraq to let the troops know about the great job they’re doing,” the New York Democrat said.
Reed, who voted against authorizing war against Iraq, said his rationale has been confirmed by his visit, as well as by a trip he made in July.
He said the Bush administration was too hasty in dismissing the U.N. search for weapons that probably would have shown that Iraq represented no imminent threat to the United States. He said alleged links between Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network and Saddam Hussein also appeared to be exaggerated.
For her part, Clinton supported a resolution granting Bush congressional authority to wage war against Iraq.
Iraqis expressed differing opinions about the significance of Thursday’s 2 1/2-hour visit by Bush, which was organized in such secrecy that even members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council who greeted the president were not told about it.
“We cannot consider Bush’s arrival at Baghdad International Airport yesterday as a visit to Iraq,” said Mahmoud Othman, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. “He did not meet with ordinary Iraqis. Bush was only trying to boost the morale of his troops.”
A soldier died on Thanksgiving from a gunshot wound inside the heavily fortified U.S. base in Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad. Military officials have refused to describe the circumstances of the shooting.
Another soldier died Friday when four mortar shells pounded a 101st Airborne Division base in Mosul. Iraqi insurgents have stepped up attacks in previously calm Mosul in recent weeks.
U.S. soldiers in Ramadi shot a 7-year-old Iraqi child in the foot after the child pointed an AK-47 automatic rifle at them, the U.S. military said.
And a U.S. soldier was seriously wounded after a roadside bomb struck a convoy he was traveling in near the town of Samarra, about 75 miles north of Baghdad, said Lt. Col. William MacDonald, spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division.
Two other U.S. soldiers were injured when their tank struck a land mine near the Syrian border, the military said.
The military also said it had captured one of Saddam’s former bodyguards, identified as Brig. Gen. Khalid Arak Hatimy. The statement said Hatimy had been inciting the uprising west of Baghdad and providing money and weapons to guerrillas.
More than 60 U.S. troops have been killed in hostile action in November, more than any other month since Bush declared the end of major combat May 1. Since operations began, nearly 300 U.S. service members have died from hostile action.
Soldier Killed in Iraq After Bush Visit
The headline is AP at its disgraceful worst.
Visit of Hillary Clinton causes death of soldier. Seeing a pig on TV caused the Iraqi terrorist to react violently.
Kucinich was making the same point today. Who are these mythical UN soldiers and where are they going to come from? Are they anything like the ones who abandoned Rwanda? Are they anything like the ones hiding under their beds in the Congo? Are they anything like the ones who we replaced in Bosnia?
Disgraceful, and dim-witted to boot.
Wrong headline. I would use the following headline;
Soldier Killed after Boston Globe Helps Hide the Identity and Location of Jordan Student who is Fighting Our Troops
RAMADI, Iraq -- A middle-class university student from Jordan described how he has spent months launching attacks on American soldiers, after being smuggled across the Jordanian border during his summer recess and trained at a guerrilla camp in central Iraq...
..."There's no way for Al Qaeda to contact us, and we don't need Al Qaeda to bring us here," he told the Globe during a 90-minute interview on Monday, in a tiny village on the outskirts of Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad.
(My Bold)
The Globe seems to be hiding the identity and location of the jihadists who are killing our guys.
The UN is illegitimate! I think Clinton needs to examine, in depth, the past administering of the UN; she could start with Uganda and work her way up the alphabet.
This could be one of the worst flu seasons in 30 years, with thousands more people dying than in a normal year because they failed to get vaccinated, according to the director of the Mayo Clinic Vaccine Research Group. (Related item: Four Colorado children die from flu)
"This will probably be the worst flu season we've had in several decades," said infectious disease specialist Gregory Poland. "My guess is that we'll be in the 50,000 to 70,000 deaths this year due to this strain."
In an average year, the disease infects up to 20% of the U.S. population, killing about 36,000 Americans and hospitalizing 114,000, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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