Posted on 06/21/2007 7:33:11 AM PDT by ruschpa
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Fourteen U.S. troops have been killed in attacks over the past two days in Iraq -- 12 soldiers and two Marines -- according to the U.S. military.
In the deadliest attack, a roadside bomb struck a military vehicle on Thursday in northeastern Baghdad, killing five U.S. soldiers, three Iraqi civilians and an Iraqi interpreter.
A U.S. soldier and two civilians were wounded.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Ooops sorry :)
If I knew, I’d try to answer, but that’s above my pay grade. I’ll be as honest as I can about the current situation however. I’ve become very negative and cynical about the conduct of the War in Iraq. That certainly doesn’t come as a surprise but I just posted on another thread in an attempt to explain that cynicism. You can take it for what’s it’s worth.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1853925/posts?page=52#52
Thank you. Since 9/11, I’ve given considerable thought to this and done considerable reading about it. We’re dealing with something that most of us in the West simply don’t understand.
Again, the reasons for this can be placed at so many doorsteps...
imo, there is only one set of doorsteps.
Just horrible.
???....Little early for tippling....
The Saudis side with us. Do you?
Area bombardment against light infantry in an urban setting doesn't work-- you still need grunts to go in and kill the survivors up front or to direct guided munitions within effective range.
You just wind up killing a bunch of civilians, which generates more recruits to replace those whom you kill.
What is a joke are our intel ops where we capture one of these scum and give them a JAG lawyer instead of introducing their testicles to Mr. Field Telephone and then putting them against the wall when we've extracted all info we can from them.
I think we now engage in the more productive hyprocrisy of turning captives over to the IA, who essentially do the dirty work for us.
JV? Who is that...From the US? What branch I asked...ah, yes, Ft. Livingroom...
I have observed your posts on many Iraq threads. They are completely unhelpful.
The idea that we only want to know bad news from Iraq about US deaths is absurd.
We are fighting a propaganda war against our own media and defeatists like yourself.
We are winning this war. Your hero Cindy Sheehan has admitted defeat in this war.
The US has won and continues to win the war in Iraq.
There is little defeatists can do about this until mid 2009 at the earliest.
I am so glad Bush is in control.
Iraqis HATE Al Qaeda more than Americans do. This is an astounding hearts and minds win for America that far exceeds any sense of defeatism being promted by the right, left and MSM.
In case you haven’t been told to pound sand today, do so now.
U.S. troops set trap for militants near Baghdad
By Paul Tait
Thu Jun 21, 2:38 PM ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Thursday it was setting a trap to “eliminate” al Qaeda militants around Baghdad, but also said 12 American soldiers had been killed in the past two days, mostly in roadside bombings.
The toll of civilian casualties continued to rise after a suicide bomber killed 16 people by ramming his truck into a government building near the northern city of Kirkuk.
Tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers are pushing on with simultaneous operations in Baghdad and to the north, south and west of the capital under Operation Phantom Thunder, a new plan aimed at rooting out al Qaeda fighters and other militants.
The latest offensive comes after the U.S. military completed the build-up of its forces in Iraq to 156,000 soldiers and aimed to deny militants sanctuary in the farmlands and towns surrounding Baghdad.
“To the extent that you can eliminate them, we will,” said U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox.
“(And) if you’ve got it properly cordoned then they’re going to flee into somebody’s arms. It’s a trap.”
Hard fighting was expected in the next 45-60 days, he said.
In the worst incident for the military in the past 48 hours, five soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle in northeastern Baghdad on Thursday. Three Iraqi civilians and an Iraqi interpreter also died.
Another roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in west Baghdad on Wednesday. Such bombs are by far the biggest killers of U.S. forces in Iraq.
Washington and U.S. commanders say that some of the most sophisticated roadside bombs — “explosively formed penetrators,” or EFPs — are still being brought in to Iraq from neighboring Iran, a charge Tehran denies.
“I know that inside of my battle space, there are munitions clearly marked with Iranian markings, and I am losing many of my soldiers to EFPs,” Major-General Rick Lynch, whose command stretches south from Baghdad to the Euphrates River and west to the Iranian border, told Reuters in an interview.
A total of 3,545 U.S. soldiers have been killed since the start of the unpopular war in March 2003.
BOATS DESTROYED
On Baghdad’s southern flank, the military said 60 suspected insurgents were detained, 17 boats used to transport bomb parts to the capital were destroyed, and weapons caches were seized.
To the north, 10,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops continued assaulting al Qaeda hideouts in an operation focused on Baquba, the volatile capital of Diyala province, that has killed 41 militants over the past three days, the U.S. military said.
Fox said it was too early to call Operation Phantom Thunder a turning point in the war but said the military was stepping up the pressure on al Qaeda.
“This is a military operation with clear objectives ... to set the conditions for the political and economic progress that the government of Iraq needs to demonstrate,” Fox said.
U.S. President George W. Bush has sent 28,000 extra soldiers to help curb sectarian bloodshed and buy Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki time to reach a political accommodation with disaffected minority Sunni Arabs, who are locked in a withering cycle of violence with majority Shi’ite Muslims.
The key element of political goals set by Washington, an oil law, advanced on Thursday after Kurdish officials from autonomous Kurdistan said they had reached agreement with the central government on sharing oil revenues.
Under the agreement, the Kurdistan region will take 17 percent of all oil revenue from Iraq’s oil fields, the world’s third largest. But there is still a dispute over who will control the fields.
In Sulaiman Bek, a town south of Kirkuk, a suicide truck bomber struck a compound housing the municipal headquarters and local town council. The blast reduced nearby houses to rubble.
Police and hospital sources said 16 people were killed and 76 wounded. At least 10 city council members, including the mayor and the police chief, were among the wounded.
(Additional reporting by Dean Yates, Waleed Ibrahim and Ross Colvin in Baghdad)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/iraq_dc;_ylt=AuA93nMGFD.iNyOkKdnJA7aaK8MA
A U.S. soldier aims his rifle at a bridge in Baquba June 21, 2007. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic (IRAQ
A U.S. soldier surveys an area on top of an armoured vehicle at a check point in Baquba June 21, 2007. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic (IRAQ)
A U.S. soldier adjusts a warning poster at a check point in Baquba June 21, 2007. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic (IRAQ)
Well that seems a reasonable response to calls to support our troops.
You just wind up killing a bunch of civilians, which generates more recruits to replace those whom you kill.
In fact, when Saddam started killing enough Iranians, the Ayatollah surrendered.
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