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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (567651)	4/22/2004 4:27:24 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 769670

<font color=brown>"President Bush accused Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network of being behind the morning rush-hour attacks. "They just blew up innocent Iraqis," he said in Washington."<font color=black> Its so very clear why they keep him under lock and key! Kinda like you! ;~) ******************************************************* Updated: 12:39 PM EDT Basra Grieves After Suicide Bombings Death Toll Rises to 73 By Abdel-Razzak Hameed, Reuters BASRA (April 22) - Iraq's southern city of Basra mourned its dead on Thursday after suicide bombers killed 73 people, 17 of them children burned alive on their way to school. Five of the 99 people wounded in the blasts died overnight, hospital officials said, raising the death toll to 73. Streets were quiet and most schools were closed after Wednesday's co-ordinated bombings of police stations. Among the victims were eight kindergarten children and nine pupils of the Amjad Intermediate School for Girls whose minibuses flamed into an inferno after one explosion. The girls' school shut its gates on Thursday. "We are going to attend the funerals," said Leila Abdullah, an administrator. The blasts at three police stations in the Shiite city, and at the police academy in nearby Zubeir, a mainly Sunni town, were the bloodiest attacks in British-controled Basra since the start of the U.S.-led occupation a year ago. President Bush accused Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network of being behind the morning rush-hour attacks. "They just blew up innocent Iraqis," he said in Washington. A senior military official in Baghdad said the simultaneous strikes bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida or its affiliates. "The method, the mode is consistent time after time -- a spectacular event and a symbolic target," he said. He pointed the finger at Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with suspected links to al-Qaida who is accused by U.S. officials of orchestrating suicide attacks to spark a civil war between Iraq's minority Sunnis and majority Shiites. An explosion damaged a car near a police academy in the northern city of Kirkuk, but there were no casualties, police said. The cause of the blast was not immediately clear. The Basra attacks shocked a city which had seen little of the violence exploding elsewhere in Iraq this month. U.S. forces have intensified battles with Sunni insurgents in the western city of Fallujah and rolled back an uprising led by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the south. About 1,000 al-Sadr supporters carried mock coffins through Basra streets to protest against the police station bombings. "Long live Sadr. No, no to America," they chanted.** FIGHTING NEAR FALLUJAH Clashes flared in Karma, 10 miles north of Fallujah. Guerrillas fired rocket-propelled grenades and mortars at U.S. Marines backed by helicopters, witnesses said. Witnesses said Fallujah frontlines were calm and a local official said police were collecting heavy weapons from fighters under a peace deal announced by U.S. forces on Sunday. A senior official of the U.S.-led administration said the quantity and quality of arms turned in so far was unimpressive. "It's lackluster, not terribly encouraging, not what we could consider demonstrating an effort to comply fully," he said. The U.S. military has repeatedly questioned the ability of Iraqi mediators to persuade Fallujah gunmen to disarm. The military is also demanding the surrender of those behind the murder and public mutilation of four American private security guards ambushed in Fallujah on March 31. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said violence was likely to go on beyond a planned transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30. He also told BBC Radio a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq could be adopted in May. Washington and London are keen to agree a U.N. resolution endorsing the handover to a caretaker government and the path to elections and a permanent constitution, with the hope of involving more countries in efforts to stabilise Iraq. Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic have already decided to withdraw their troops. Poland, which leads a multinational force handling a swathe of central and southern Iraq, said on Wednesday it was reviewing its position. "We cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that Spain and others are leaving," said Prime Minister Leszek Miller. The White House said it did not rule out seeking more money for Iraq this year after obtaining $87 billion last year. The occupation which followed the toppling of Saddam Hussein is due to end formally in 10 weeks' time, but this month's bloodshed has clouded the runup to the transition. Since the start of the war in March last year, 511 U.S. soldiers have been killed in combat, Pentagon figures show. More than 100 have been killed this month. Denmark said a Danish businessman reported missing on April 11 had been found dead. An Italian hostage was killed this month by kidnappers demanding Italian troops leave Iraq. A spate of kidnappings this month has snared civilians from more than a dozen countries. Most have been freed. Gunmen assassinated a former Baathist intelligence officer as he was driving home with his daughter near Kerbala, south of Baghdad, on Wednesday evening, a local official said. Three hooded men shot dead Captain Majid Ghali and his daughter later died of bullet wounds. 04-22-04 11:37 EDT Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited.