1/3 of Iraqi Army resigns (plus some journalist heroism)
Friday, December 12, 2003
Iraqi recruits are quitting before they get to be soldiers
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER NEWS SERVICES
Efforts to create a new Iraqi army to help take over the country's security have suffered a setback with the resignations of more than one-third of the soldiers trained so far, officials say.
The setback came as suicide bombers struck again, killing one U.S. soldier west of Baghdad.
The recruits said they were unhappy with salaries and other terms of employment, so the U.S. occupation authority will review those issues, an authority official said yesterday.
Promoted as essential to Iraq's future, the army's first 700-man battalion lost some 250 men over recent weeks as they were preparing to begin operations this month, Pentagon officials said.
In Baghdad, the authority official who briefed reporters yesterday on condition of anonymity said salaries and terms and conditions of employment would be compared with the other security services in Iraq such as police and border guards.
The official said current salaries -- at least for low-level troops -- far outweighed those in the Army under ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Recruits earn $50 per month, privates $60, and colonels $180, compared with $2 for recruits under Saddam.
Three suicide bombers in a furniture truck blew themselves up at the gates of a U.S. Army base yesterday. In addition to the single fatality, 14 soldiers were wounded. It was the third suicide attack on American troops in Iraq this week.
Three wounded soldiers were evacuated from the headquarters of the 82nd Airborne Division west of Baghdad to a combat hospital and the other 11 wounded were treated and returned to duty, the U.S. military reported.
There were no U.S. fatalities in the previous two suicide attacks this week, indicating defenses erected at American facilities were paying off.
Early today, three loud explosions boomed in the "Green Zone," the compound housing the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition, in central Baghdad.
A coalition spokesman said two projectiles hit "in the vicinity of the Green Zone," causing minor damage to one building but no casualties. He couldn't confirm whether the building was in the zone. Insurgents last month targeted the compound with mortars.
Three Iraqis were killed in the truck that exploded yesterday at Champion Base in Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad.
The region around Ramadi and the nearby city of Fallujah is one of the most dangerous for coalition troops and sits in the so-called Sunni Triangle, where the majority of U.S. deaths in hostile action have occurred since President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1.
Also yesterday, the military reported one U.S. soldier drowned and another was missing after a patrol boat accident on the Tigris River in Baghdad.
The incident occurred Wednesday, and the drowned soldier from the Army's 1st Armored Division was found yesterday morning.
In Samarra, another volatile city 60 miles north of Baghdad, two members of the U.S.-led paramilitary Civil Defense Corps were shot and killed overnight while on patrol, witnesses said yesterday. The attackers were not identified.
A Time magazine reporter suffered severe shrapnel wounds and lost his hand when he tried to throw away a grenade tossed into a Humvee he was riding in with a Time photographer and two U.S. soldiers, colleagues said yesterday.
Time senior correspondent Michael Weisskopf and contributing photographer James Nachtwey were traveling with a U.S. Army patrol in Baghdad Wednesday night when the attack occurred, a statement from Time managing editor Jim Kelly said.
The soldiers also were wounded, the U.S. military said, but gave no further information.
Time would not offer details on the incident. But a memo sent to Weisskopf's former colleagues at The Washington Post said he picked up the grenade and tossed it out of the Humvee. It exploded, blowing off his hand and wounding him in the chest and arms.
"According to people he works with at Time, he picked up the grenade and tossed it out, losing his right hand in the process while saving four lives," the memo said.
The Paris-based World Association of Newspapers has said that at least 16 journalists have been killed in Iraq this year. Many others have been wounded.
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