What a laugh. Kerry isn't a "war hero."
These are war heros.
M
Marines find seven missing Americans, enter city of Saddam's birth
By Calvin Woodward, Associated Press, 4/13/2003 14:31
Marines found seven missing U.S. soldiers Sunday, bedraggled in POW garb, in a jubilant turn for their families, and met little resistance as they entered the hometown of the vanished and perhaps dead Saddam Hussein.
American forces had once thought the city of Tikrit might be a last redoubt. It wasn't turning out that way. And war leaders said they knew of no more hostile Iraqi strongholds to overrun.
Even before Tikrit could be declared under control, Gen. Tommy Franks, the war commander, said the time had come to double back to towns skipped on the race to Baghdad and other strategic locations.
''We have simply bypassed villages and towns and so forth,'' he said. ''And now we will go to each and every one of them, and be sure that we don't have some last, small stronghold in that country.''
U.S. officials said forensics experts had samples of Saddam's DNA and would try to find a match from bodies recovered in the bomb and missile attacks most likely to have killed him.
And on the war's other deep puzzle, the location of any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, U.S. forces reported they held a variety of Iraqi officials, including a half brother of Saddam, who might have useful information.
Other figures from the Saddam era have certainly escaped into Syria on Iraq's western border, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said.
And President Bush said that must not continue. ''They just need to cooperate,'' he said.
Syria's deputy ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, denied his country was taking in Iraqis and said it was America's job to monitor Iraq's western border.
Franks said Iraqis were coming forward in great numbers to tell soldiers where to find Saddam loyalists, arms caches and leads on chemical, biological and nuclear-weapons programs.
One unidentified tipster stood out over all others Sunday an Iraqi who told Marines headed to Tikrit that they would find missing Americans up the road.
Two helicopter pilots and five members of the 507th Maintenance Company convoy who were ambushed March 23 and shown on Iraqi television walked or ran into a transport plane for a flight to Kuwait.
Two had gunshot wounds, Franks said. They were found a day after Pvt. Jessica Lynch, their POW comrade rescued in a commando raid, returned to the United States for further treatment of her many injuries.
In Lithia Springs, Ga., Kaye and Ron Young Sr. spotted their pilot son, Army Chief Warrant Officer Ronald D. Young Jr., 26, in choppy video. ''It's him, and I'm just so happy that I could kiss the world!'' his dad said.
In Pennsauken, N.J., the parents of Sgt. James Riley, 31, had just returned from church services when they heard their son had been found.
''It's just an emotional roller coaster, and we're just happy he's safe, said his mother, Jane. Yet awful, if not unexpected, news awaited the sergeant the death of his sister, Mary, 29, two weeks ago from a neurological disorder that had kept her in a coma since January.
Before Sunday, 12 soldiers had been listed as POWs or missing in action.
The seven recovered Sunday were in pajama-like prison outfits or similar clothing; Army Spc. Shoshana Johnson, was back in khakis as she was escorted to the plane, clutching the purple and white clothing she'd been found in.
Young and Chief Warrant Officer David S. Williams, 30, of Orlando, Fla., were shot down in their Apache helicopter south of Baghdad on March 23.
The other recovered POWs, in addition to Johnson and Riley, were Spc. Joseph Hudson, 23, of Alamogordo, N.M.; Pfc. Patrick Miller, 23, of Park City, Kan.; and Spc. Edgar Hernandez, 21, of Mission, Texas.
Allied forces pressed their hunt for senior figures from the Saddam era.
U.S. officials said Sunday that Watban Ibrahim Hasan, an adviser and half brother of Saddam, was recently picked up en route to Syria. Saddam's science adviser surrendered Saturday.
Rumsfeld said he hoped Syria would not become a ''haven for war criminals or terrorists.'' Syrians have accounted for the largest share of foreign fighters that U.S. troops have faced in Baghdad over the past 24 hours, he said.
With U.S. troops guarding banks and hospitals, parts of Baghdad finally began to return to normal Sunday. Shops reopened, traffic snarled and people who had fled the fighting began streaming home.
But looting, persistent for days, spread to a vast stretch of army barracks and warehouses on the western outskirts. Thieves stole toilets, bathtubs, sinks and construction materials from one of the largest warehouses.
Nearer the city center, an institute of military studies was looted and gutted by fire.
U.S. troops and Iraqi police are working on setting up joint patrols to bring order back to Baghdad and other cities where lawlessness has been rampant.
A team of 32 U.S. Army engineers flew into Baghdad on Sunday help restore electricity.
Marines fanned through neighborhoods of northeast Baghdad, finding large caches of weapons and ammunition in schools, in parked trucks, even in open fields where children play.
''Get this stuff out,'' said resident Achmad Idan, 41. ''These people can't live here.'' He was standing next to a blue truck in which anti-tank rounds were discovered.
In one upscale neighborhood, Marines and special forces found two short-range Frog-7 missiles each capable of carrying 25 gallons of chemical agents. One, on its mobile transporter/launcher, was found in nursery among potted plants and palm trees; the second was found 500 yards away in a trailer in front of a University of Baghdad administrative building.
In Mosul, the biggest city in the north, a U.S. Special Forces soldier was shot and wounded Sunday while on a patrol aimed at improving security.
Maj. Fred Dummar said the soldier was in a Land Rover, driving past a waving crowd, when a bullet smashed through the rear window and struck his leg. The wound was not believed to be life-threatening.
U.S. forces once anticipated a furious last stand by Saddam loyalists in Tikrit, 90 miles north of Baghdad. But U.S. officials played down that prospect in the past few days because of desertions and damage from sustained airstrikes.
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