Posted on 07/14/2003 10:43:26 PM PDT by Destro
Monday July 14, 11:52 PM
US soldier killed, blasts hits coalition HQ as Iraqi council meets
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Another US soldier was killed in Iraq and a grenade targetted the US-led coalition's HQ hours after the new Governing Council took office in the hope of calming the violent situation in the country.
The British government meanwhile felt a new backlash in the row over Saddam Hussein's elusive weapons of mass destruction, with a poll indicating two-thirds of voters felt Prime Minister Tony Blair had misled them.
The grenade exploded outside the headquarters of the coalition forces in the centre of the Iraqi capital at around 4:40 pm (1240 GMT), Iraqi police said, without reporting casualties.
The device, hurled from a car which drove up to the major symbol of US power in Baghdad, exploded under a jeep belonging to the Tunisian embassy, wrecking the vehicle, police captain Mohammed Muauyez said.
The blast rocked the main parking area outside a series of checkpoints and razor wire passages to the Baghdad convention center.
The latest incident came after US officials warned of attacks on the coalition coinciding with the July 16 anniversary of Saddam becoming president and the July 17 commemoration of his Baath party's rise to power in 1968.
It blew away any hope that the new council, which held its inaugural meeting Sunday, would usher in a period of stability after three months of chaos.
Earlier a US soldier was killed and six others were wounded in a multiple rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack on their patrol in Baghdad, a US military spokesman said.
In what appeared to be a separate incident on a highway just north of the capital, a US convoy also came under RPG attack. A US soldier at the scene told an AFP photographer that one US soldier and two Iraqis had been wounded.
The latest death brought to 32 the number of US soldiers killed in combat since the United States declared hostilities over on May 1.
The violence again overshadowed efforts to kickstart rebuilding efforts, and particularly the unveiling of the long awaited Governing Council which is ultimately aimed at preparing the ground for elections as early as next year.
The 25-member body, whose inaugural meeting was a landmark step towards democratic self-government after 35 years of Baath Party rule, met again Monday to discuss council procedure.
But it remained to be seen how pro-US figures on the council and those like Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite pro-Iranian cleric who has referred to the Americans as "occupiers", would chart the country's course.
More tensions flared in the capital Monday as former members of Saddam's now disbanded armed forces faced off with US troops as they protested that promised salaries had gone unpaid since March.
US troops said the payments would begin Tuesday, instead of Monday as announced last month by the coalition.
Meanwhile efforts by the United States to draw in other countries to share the military burden in Iraq suffered a new blow, when the Indian government decided not to send troops.
The decision, ending months of dithering on the politically-explosive issue, came after two hours of deliberations within the security cabinet headed by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
The security cabinet suggested that troops could be deployed provided they had the mandate of the United Nations.
The US military said its latest operation to wipe out resistance from remnants of the ousted Baath Party regime, dubbed Ivy Serpent, had netted more than 200 suspects and yielded a large cache of weapons.
But Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction he was supposed to possess are still missing.
Failure to find the weapons, and admission of false information in statements by Britain and the United States in their cases for going to war in Iraq, are continuing to cause political trouble in London and Washington.
A defiant Blair said Britons should be "proud" of having helped the United States overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime.
Speaking after a meeting near London with fellow center-left world leaders, Blair said there was no doubt in anyone's mind that Saddam represented "a security threat" to the world.
"We should be proud as a country of what we have done."
Sixty-six percent of those questioned in the ICM Research poll published in Monday's Daily Mirror said Blair had misled them -- whether on purpose or not -- over the reasons for going to war.
Twenty seven percent said they believed Blair knowingly misled the British people, while 39 percent said he had misled them, but not knowingly.
More than a third, 35 percent, said that their confidence in Blair had decreased as a result of his handling of the confrontation with Iraq.
I didn't see the words Quagmire and Vietnam though! So that is good!
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We didn't "eliminate" squat. All we did was force soldier's out of uniform and into civilian attire, they stashed their weapon's. and planned guerilla warfare before the first bomb fell. Easy to "kick ass" when you meet no resistance, not so easy to "kick ass" when you can't stick your head out of your turret. This war isn't over, despite the accolades, by a long shot. We need to double our troop strength. Smart bomb's will never win war's, and 150K troop's will never "occupy" a Country this size. Blackbird.
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