Free Republic

Two U.S. soldiers were killed and another was injured in a Jan. 21 mortar and rocket attack on a 4th Infantry Division base near Baqubah, Iraq. The wounded soldier was treated immediately and was evacuated to the 21st Combat Support Hospital, according to a Combined Joint Task Force 7 news release. The soldier was reported to be in critical, but stable, condition. Officials are withholding the soldiers' names until their families are notified. At a coalition press conference in Baghdad today, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations director for CJTF 7, updated recent military activity in Iraq. Kimmitt. The...

Anti-coalition forces and former regime elements should "lay down their arms and embrace the future," the commander of U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq said in a briefing from Baghdad today. "The former regime is never going to come back," said Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 7. "We're going to be relentless in the pursuit of these targets. We're going to capture or kill them, as is our mission. Those that remain at large, and given the pace that we're moving toward sovereignty, it's time for them to lay down their arms and become...

Coalition personnel are working with the Iraqi Ministry of Oil to head off gasoline smuggling, sabotage of the oil industry infrastructure and black-market profiteering. Officials said these continue to be among the greatest problems facing the Iraqi people. Coalition spokesman Dan Senor and Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the operations deputy at Combined Joint Task Force 7, briefed the press in Baghdad today. Senor talked about steps the coalition is making to combat the gas shortage that is plaguing life in Iraq. Senor cited a number of causes to the gasoline shortage, which has made for long gas lines at...