Pat B, now there's a weird one.
"...there will be a search conducted for those who misled us and, yes, lied us into war, and why they did it."
Yeah, right. This won't happen as long as the Republicans control the WH and Congress. Republicans LOVE incompetence, after all it requires so much less 'hard work.'
It IS a small wonder that the media is finally going after Rummy and the admin for Iraq. At least they're asking how Rummy can possibly say that we're winning against the insurgents AT THE SAME TIME we're plowing more troops and tons more money against the insurgents.
Rummy has also been LYING and is now directly contradicting himself and everyone else by saying that the violence will continue PAST the elections.
latimes.com
Suicide Bomber Suspected in Mosul Blast
By Edmund Sanders and Daryl Strickland
Times Staff Writers
2:03 PM PST, December 22, 2004
The powerful explosion that tore through a mess tent at a U.S. military base near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul was likely caused by a suicide bomber, the U.S. military's top officer said today.
Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that Tuesday's deadly attack probably was caused by an insurgent who had infiltrated the military base and set off an explosive inside.
"At this point, it looks like it was an improvised explosive device worn by an attacker," Myers said at a Pentagon news conference with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The explosion killed at least 22 people and wounded 69, including U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and civilian contractors at the Forward Operating Base Marez, just south of Mosul.
Of those, 13 U.S. troops were among the dead, Myers said today, putting the attack among the deadliest single incidents for the American military in Iraq since the invasion of March 2003.
About 50 people — most of them U.S. soldiers — arrived today at a medical hospital in Germany. The wounded were flown to Ramstein Air Base, and taken to nearby Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Officials believed eight of them to be in critical condition.
Military investigators in Iraq were quoted in news reports today as saying shrapnel from the blast included ball bearings. That material typically is not found in rockets or mortars, leading investigators to suspect a suicide bomber. Moreover, Myers said that one of the bodies recovered today was "a non-U.S. person," but said he did not know if that was the bomber.
U.S. officials originally downplayed suggestions that the blast was the work of a suicide bomber, saying they believed the weapon used was a 122-millimeter rocket. Such rockets have a range of up to several miles, military experts say.
Tuesday's blast threw soldiers off their chairs and into a jumble of bloodied lunch trays, upturned tables and shrapnel. Panicked troops fled the large tent and dived for cover in concrete bunkers outside. Photographs showed sunlight streaming through a massive hole in the top of the tent as soldiers carried out the wounded. One distraught soldier stood solemnly over a black body bag.
Rumsfeld today said he could not promise a safer Iraq against insurgent attacks anytime soon, even if Iraqi national elections will be held in late January as expected.
"They have to be right 100% of the time," Rumsfeld said of the U.S. military. "An attacker only has to be right occasionally. And we've seen that in all kinds of circumstances around the world over the decades."
He added: "I would also say … that I think looking for a peaceful Iraq after the elections would be a mistake. I think our expectations level ought to be realistic about that. …The extremists and the terrorists and the people who are determined to try to take back that country are determined not to lose. … And we've got to do everything to see that they fail."
Rumsfeld and Myers both downplayed the risk of throngs of soldiers gathered in a central point, like a mess hall. "It's not a viable strategy to ask everybody to separate" and suicide bombing can be very difficult to prevent, Myers said.
Having a presence "creates targets. That's just the reality," Myers said.
The attack came a day after President Bush painted a sobering picture of the situation in Iraq, saying at a Washington news conference that insurgent attacks were eroding the morale of Iraqis and Americans and that efforts to train Iraqi troops had had only "mixed" results.
In a statement on an Islamic website, the militant group Ansar al Sunna Army claimed responsibility for the strike, calling it a "martyrdom" operation, which usually means a suicide attack. The claim could not be verified.
Ansar al Sunna, which has links to Al Qaeda and Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi, has claimed responsibility for other deadly attacks in northern Iraq, including the killings of 12 Nepalese hostages in August and twin suicide bombings in Irbil in February, when men wearing explosives-laden vests killed more than 100 people.
Tuesday's attack caught soldiers at one of their most vulnerable points. Military dining facilities are often soft-sided tents, and meals are one of the few times that troops congregate in large groups. The facility in Mosul was equipped to seat several hundred soldiers, who usually remove their helmets and flak jackets and rest their guns on the floor while they eat.
Bill Nemitz, a columnist with Maine's Portland Press Herald newspaper who is on assignment with the troops in Mosul, told CNN that he had heard "a lot of discussion" about the vulnerability of the tent. The military reportedly was constructing a concrete and steel dining hall to replace the tent.
If investigators determine that a bomb was planted in the tent or suicide attackers infiltrated the base, the incident will raise even more serious questions about the security at U.S. military installations.
Besides housing several battalions of the 25th Infantry Division, based at Ft. Lewis, Wash., the 276th Engineer Battalion from Richmond, Va., and a unit of Maine Army National Guard, the camp also is a training facility for the Iraqi national guard.
In addition to the 13 soldiers, Myers said that five U.S. civilian contractors and three Iraqi security force members were killed. An investigation has yet to determine whether remains recovered from the "non-U.S. person" was the suspected suicide bomber.
Also, Myers said that 25 of the 69 wounded have been returned to active duty.
"I assure you that everything possible is being done to get to the bottom of what happened and to take the appropriate steps so we can prevent potential future attacks of this nature," Myers said. |
