Today in Iraq

War News for August 3, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers killed, two wounded in Baghdad roadside bomb ambush. Bring ‘em on: Iraqi police chief killed, two policemen wounded by roadside bomb in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Another roadside bombing reported in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: One US Marine killed, six wounded in mortar attack and patrol ambush near Fallujah. Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi killed, two wounded as US troops raid al-Sadr’s home in Kufa. Bring ‘em on: Major pipeline attack reported near Beiji. Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi soldiers killed, four wounded by car bomb near Baquba. Bring ‘em on: Iraqi police repel insurgent attack on police station near Kirkuk. CENTCOM reports another US Marine died from wounds received in fighting in al-Anbar province. Church bombings. “A group in Iraq have claimed responsibility for the series of church bombs at the weekend in a statement posted on a Web site, saying they were a response to the U.S. "crusader war" and evangelization, reports the Reuters news agency. The language of ‘crusade’ was used by George Bush in the run up to the war in Iraq. Bush originally caused an uproar by telling reporters: ‘This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile.’ But the word was also revived by the Bush-Cheney election campaign as recently as April this year.” Baghdad ER. “’We receive people with shell and mortar injuries, legs blown off by mines, cluster bombs. Really, there's every type here, whatever you can imagine,’ said Dr. Ahmed Qassem Muhammad, chief physician at the Baghdad Rehabilitation Center, one of the few Iraqi medical facilities devoted to the aftermath of war. The hospital, Iraq's receiving center for amputees, gets 30 to 50 patients a day, Muhammad said. Because of heavy demand brought on by an increasingly bloody urban insurgency, Iraq now has a four-month waiting list for adult patients needing artificial legs.” Algeria tells Saudis to pound sand. Pakistan tells Saudis pound sand. Libya tells Saudis to pound sand. Bangladesh tells Saudis to pound sand. Turkish FM says Iraq is the greatest threat to regional stability. “’Turkey has so far attributed great importance to rapid settlement of stability and peace in Iraq. However, as you see today, there is a serious security problem there. Almost one hundred Iraqis die each day. Our relations will remain as relations with a neighbouring country.’” Support the troops! “Air Force restricts medications carried in Air Force pharmacies. MOAA is concerned that this decision is motivated by cost alone. With this unilateral decision, the Air Force has bypassed the new, congressionally mandated Uniform Formulary (UF) process. The UF uses clinical experts to determine which medications are safest and most cost effective for the entire TRICARE program. More importantly, the decision bypasses any input from the (also congressionally mandated) Beneficiary Advisory Panel (BAP)--where beneficiary representatives have the opportunity to make public comment on pharmacy decisions.” Hey, we gotta pay for Lieutenant AWOL’s tax cuts! Commentary Editorial: “In March, as I was writing, the $18.4 billion reconstruction effort was just getting off the ground. I had sat in on a briefing in which a senior U.S. official confidently predicted that, by June, thanks to American rebuilding efforts, Iraq would have electricity 18 hours a day throughout the country. I called that promise ‘credible,’ and argued that, once Iraqis could see that kind of progress from the rebuilding program, perhaps the insurgency would abate. I just couldn't conceive, given how severely the lack of electricity undermines everything they are trying to achieve, that the Americans would publicly set a goal and then fail to meet it. But that's just what they did.” Editorial: “The grim succession of news from Iraq makes the belief that security would improve, however slowly, after the handover to an interim administration, seem more than ever misplaced. Casualties inflicted on US-led foreign forces have fallen from the very high levels of recent months, but the shadowy forces of insurgency are able to shift their targets at will. Sunday's attacks on Christian churches appear carefully coordinated, picking on a minority which had so far been untouched, and again underline the terrorists' freedom of manoeuvre.” Opinion: “The 43rd president, George W. Bush, is turning out to be one of the worst in American history. He had his opportunity to be a great one after Sept. 11, 2001, and he blew it. In three years, he has, almost willfully, marched us into disaster. The nation was united behind him; most of the world was united behind us. Now the nation is divided, poorer in many ways, and much of the world hates us.” Analysis: “The problem now is this. Bush wants his cake and he wants to eat it at the same time. In other words, he wants to own Iraq by keeping a large contingent of American troops permanently on Iraqi soil along with spies and politicians safe behind the walls of the world’s biggest US Embassy. At the same time, he doesn’t want it to appear so. He would like nothing more than for the US military in Iraq to be able to keep a low profile, while troops from Arab and Muslim nations put on a smiley public relations face to the world.” Casualty Reports Local story: New Jersey soldier killed in Iraq. Off Topic Captain Yee resigns. “’In 2003, I was unfairly accused of grave offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and unjustifiably placed in solitary confinement for 76 days,’ Capt. James J. Yee wrote in his resignation letter. ‘Those unfounded allegations — which were leaked to the media — irreparably injured my personal and professional reputation and destroyed my prospects for a career in the United States Army.’” Ashcroft, where does Captain Yee go to get his reputation back? 86-43-04. Pass it on.