Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (329084)	3/15/2007 7:39:36 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575427

re: Muslim rebels kill 9 Buddhists Four U.S. soldiers die in Iraq By Arshad Mohammed 27 minutes ago The U.S. ambassador to Iraq advocated a mix of "pressure and engagement" on Thursday to persuade countries like Iran and Syria to help quell the violence in Iraq as a roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers. The comments by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad suggested the State Department plans to continue a conversation about Iraq with Iran, which it accuses of training and arming Iraqi militants who have attacked U.S. forces. The U.S. soldiers were killed in eastern Baghdad when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicles, the U.S. military said, raising to more than 3,200 the number of U.S. troops killed since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Separately, four car bombs, two of them in Baghdad, killed another 16 people in Iraq. There has been sharp debate in the Bush administration over whether to engage Iran to try to reduce the violence, with some officials reluctant to hold such talks given the two countries' long history of enmity as well as U.S. accusations that Iran sponsors terrorism and is pursuing nuclear weapons. The United States has accused Iranian elements of providing sophisticated roadside bombs used against the roughly 142,000 U.S. forces in Iraq. It accuses Syria of allowing militants to enter Iraq and harboring Baathists who support the insurgency. Both countries deny fomenting the violence in Iraq. Under pressure from the U.S. Congress to end the unpopular war, the United States engaged Iraq and Syria at a Baghdad conference on Saturday where Khalilzad dealt with officials from both countries to try win support from Iraq's neighbors. In the latest salvo from the Democrats who control Congress, an influential House of Representatives panel that oversees U.S. government spending approved a Democratic plan to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq by September 1, 2008. However, another Democratic plan calling for the withdrawal of combat troops by March 31, 2008 failed to pass the Senate. 'PRESSURE AND ENGAGEMENT' At a hearing on his nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Khalilzad said "a combination of pressure with regard to issues of concern with an openness to engage with the intent to change behavior ... is the right mix." "Those two elements of pressure and engagement don't have to be equal in weight. They can vary depending on the circumstances," he added. "In the toolbox of diplomacy, we need to have as many tools as we can ... Engagement is one tool." The United States, which cut ties with Iran in 1980 five months after Iranian students occupied the U.S. embassy in Tehran, has refused for months to have bilateral talks with Iran. It has been open to broad talks with Iran only if Tehran first suspends its uranium enrichment program, which can produce fuel for power plants or nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for power generation. U.S., Syrian and Iranian officials may have follow-on contacts in working groups to be set up as a result of the Baghdad conference. Foreign ministers from the United States, the Group of Eight industrial nations and Iraq's neighbors are expected to get together soon, possibly as early as April 1 in Istanbul, a senior State Department official told reporters. How seriously the Bush administration will pursue the contacts remains unclear. In the deadliest attack in Iraq on Thursday, a suicide car bomber targeting an Iraqi army and police checkpoint killed eight policemen and soldiers in the Karrada district of central Baghdad. South of the capital, six people died when a car bomb exploded as a bus carrying state employees drove through a stronghold of Sunni Arab insurgents fighting the U.S.-backed Shi'ite-led government. A suicide car bomber killed an Iraqi soldier at an Iraqi army checkpoint in Baghdad's western Yarmouk district while in the northern city of Mosul a car bomb killed a policeman. (Additional reporting by Aseel Kami, Ahmed Rasheed. Claudia Parsons and Ibon Villelabeitia in Baghdad and Susan Cornwell, Richard Cowan, Andrew Gray and Sue Pleming in Washington)