Posted on 11/22/2005 12:46:34 PM PST by The South Texan
Iraq Bomber Kills 17; U.S. Toll at 2,100 By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol Tuesday in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least 17 people, and three U.S. soldiers died in two separate attacks, pushing the American death toll in Iraq to 2,100, officials said.
In Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, insurgents fired a mortar at a U.S. ceremony attended by top officials to hand over a presidential palace to Iraqi authorities, sending the U.S. ambassador and top commander scrambling for cover but causing no injuries.
The attackers in Kirkuk lured the patrol to a busy commercial street by shooting a policemen, then struck with the suicide bomb as authorities investigated the shooting, said police Capt. Farhad Talabani. The bombing took place on a road leaving Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad.
Police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qader gave the casualty figure of 17 dead and 26 wounded but did not say how many were civilians.
Attacks on the security forces in Kirkuk are common. Insurgents last week in Kirkuk opened fire on a police patrol, killing three officers, while a roadside bomb a few miles away killed two more police officers.
The U.S. military said a U.S. soldier assigned to the 2nd Marine Division wask killed after a bomb detonated near his vehicle Monday near Habaniyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad. There are several U.S. Army units assigned to the Marine division.
In addition, two soldiers from Task Force Freedom were killed Saturday by small arms fire while on patrol in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, another statement said.
As of Tuesday, at least 2,100 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,638 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.
The attack on the ceremony in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, occurred as a U.S. colonel was giving a speech. A mortar whistled as it fell into a field about 300 yards away from the palace, but it failed to explode, according to an AP reporter at the scene.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, briefly went inside the palace, but emerged a few minutes later to continue the ceremony.
"This was an ineffectual attempt to stop the progress that goes on every day in Iraq," said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the U.S. command.
Later, Hamad Hamoud Shagtti, the Salahuddin provincial governor, received a symbolic key to the palace and a deputy governor raised the Iraqi flag over the complex. They toured the building, which Saddam ordered built for his mother in 1991 and is considered the largest and most elaborate of the palaces constructed during his rule.
Johnson said the handover of the palace was an important step forward in Iraq's development, something that insurgent attacks have done little to slow down, despite daily violence.
The palace is part of a complex on more than 1,000 acres overlooking the Tigris River. There are 136 buildings on the property, with a combined 1.5 million square feet of administrative and living space, including 18 palaces, the U.S. command said.
The turnover of the complex to the Finance Ministry and the provincial government was "a landmark event highlighting the increased capability of the Iraqi government to administer and govern itself," said a statement by Col. Billy J. Buckner, a spokesman for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq.
Since it was taken over by U.S. troops in 2003, the palace has served as a division headquarters for U.S. forces based in the region.
"Although 28 other coalition operating bases have already been turned over to Iraqi Security Forces control this year, the Tikrit Palace complex is the most significant transition of real estate thus far," the U.S. statement said.
Iraq's anti-corruption commission said Tuesday that members of the former government who are under investigation will not be allowed to run in next month's parliamentary elections.
Judge Radhi al-Radhi issued a statement saying there are some ministers, undersecretaries and directors who are accused of financial and administrative corruption.
"Since there are financial corruption dossiers for these officials at the Iraqi special courts, they are not qualified to take part as candidates in the coming elections," the statement said.
A commission official, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the press, said Minister of Public Works Nasreen Berwari, who is the wife of Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer, and Hazin al-Shaalan, a former defense minister, are among those banned.
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Associated Press writer Zaki Mahmoud in Tikrit contributed to this report.
I agree with much of what you said. I think we have been to P.C. in alot of things we have done in Iraq.
My point is with the "AP celebrates" is they use the body count as a way to drive down support for our troops and their mission in Iraq. The Liberals in the world, DC and the US MSM would love nothing more than a hollow military that we were left with in the mid to late 70's after they destroyed our efforts in Vietnam. This is exactly what they are trying to accomplish here and God help us if we get a Rat in the White House in 2009 because we will have that hollow miltary from the 1970's once again.
And then we will be open for all sorts of attacks against Americans here and overseas.
And if Hitlerly or Bill Clinton were president, I can guarantee you the tone and the coverage of this war would be a alot different. The body count would hardly be mentioned.
Yawn, mirror image of cindy sheehan type of rhetoric, doom and gloom from a person writing from behind a keyboard 8,000 miles away, giving a morale boost to the enemy, nonetheless.
We know the MSM. We know only wackos or morons follow the MSM.
What we conservatives should be focusing on is not what the MSM does, but how we as conservatives should direct our efforts to cause change for the better.
With Bush's Miers pick, we did exaclty that. Our outrage caused Bush to trash his Miers pick and we forced his hand to name a great nominee in Sam Alito. With this politically correct "police action" in Iraq, we need to do the same. We need to voice outrage at Bush for failing to carry through with his promise to go after nations that aid and abet terrorists. Bush is standing by while our troops are killed daily from IEDs made in Iran and from thugs who entered Iraq form the Syrian border. Bush promised us in his 911 speech that "you are with us or with the terrorists" and that he would "go after nations that harbor and aid terrorists". Everybody knows that Iran and Syria are at war with the USA. It is the Iranian IEDs that are killing our boys. It is the Syrian border that allows these thugs to kill our boys. Why has Bush reneged on his promise?
We held Bush accoutnable for the ludicrous pick of Harriet Miers. Our reaction changed the course of American history by forcing Bush to name Sam Alito. We can do the same here withthe Iraq war. We need to do the same here with Bush's Iraq tactics. We need to demand that this war be fought as a war against terror with a goal of winning and a goal of forcing nations that harbor terrorists to end their war against the USA and its troops.
Should Bush continue with his go nowhere war, then we should demand that we get out of the war business. Either fight a war like a war, or do not "fight" at all.
Prayers up for the 3 soldiers, may they rest in peace. F the media.
And you are posting from downtown Baghdad. Look we all are getting the same media coverage(bad, quagmire, etc.etc.) while reports from 95% of the soldiers returning are saying that everything is actually going pretty good and the media is distorting the true story. Seems you are also trying to distort with your cynical posts.
I'll just say I'll trust Rummy over you anyday, Mr. keyboard general.
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