Australia defence chief's son injured in Iraq Asia News, SYDNEY : The chief of Australia's armed forces General Peter Cosgrove has revealed he kept his son's deployment to Baghdad a secret, even when his son was hurt in a car bombing.
Private Philip Cosgrove, 25, was one of eight Australian troops wounded when a car bomb exploded near their convoy in Baghdad in January.
Cosgrove said that when he saw his son off at the airport last December, he did not wear his uniform so as not to alert the media.
"My wife and I attended just as private citizens, just a mum and dad. I wore civvies that day," Cosgrove told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"I may have been overprotective but I just thought it was prudent under the circumstances that there should be no particular pressure on either my son or the other soldiers by having somebody with a well-known name as one of the young, private soldiers on the frontline in Baghdad."
Cosgrove said his son was not badly injured in the car bombing.
Cosgrove, who retires in July, said he prayed every day that his son was in Iraq and was relieved when he returned home on Saturday.
"I suppose I knew on a daily, almost hour-by-hour basis, the sort of hazards our folk were facing. And that's different to what most parents have as knowledge and that probably made it a bit more difficult," he said.
"So to some degree you had to put that on the backburner and simply do the job I'm expected to do which is to be responsible for all of our people and not get overly focused on my young son, love him though I do."
Australia has about 450 troops deployed in and around Baghdad and is in the process of deploying another 450 to the country's south to protect Japanese army engineers and train Iraqi security forces.
Cosgrove also said on Monday that the troops being sent to southern Iraq could be home within eight months.
Prime Minister John Howard announced last month that the head of the air force, Air Marshal Angus Houston, would replace Cosgrove as chief of the Australian Defense Force.
"He received some minor injuries but they were not too bad. Others were more seriously injured than him, both in that incident and in others of that particular time frame so he was lucky," he said.
"But I knew fairly quickly and I was able to reassure his mum that he was fine."
Pa. man arrested for trying to sell bomb to terrorists
May 23, 2005
by Armando Duke
FBI agents arrested Ronald Grecula of Bangor Pa. in Houston after the Pa. man attempted to sell the undercover agents a bomb, thinking they were Al-qaida representatives.
May 23, 2005 (AXcess News) Houston - FBI agents arrested Ronald Grecula of Bangor Pa. in Houston after the Pa. man attempted to sell the undercover agents a bomb, thinking they were Al-qaida representatives.
According to the FBI, Grecula, 68, told agents that he was willing to build a bomb for a terrorist group he knew would use the explosive device against Americans.
Grecula is to appear in court Monday. The Pa. man is being charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, specifically al-Qaida.
Grecula faces 15 years in federal prison if convicted and could be fined up to $250,000.
An informant had introduced Grecula to an undercover FBI agent as a member of Al-qaida, authorities said. He negotiated with the informant and agent for weeks before agreeing to meet in Houston where he knew he was offering to build and sell a bomb to terrorists to be used on Americans.
Federal agents recorded their conversations with Grecula where he outlined his expertise in building explosives and had cautioned the undercover agent about being careful so they weren't caught with the bomb.