Today in Iraq

War News for Saturday, February 4, 2005 Bring ‘em on: Four US soldiers killed in two roadside bomb ambushes near Beiji. Bring ‘em on: Eleven Iraqi policemen missing after Baghdad convoy ambush. Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqi policemen killed by bomb in Basra. Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi soldiers killed in two incidents in Samarra. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents kidnap Italian journalist in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents storm and demolish Baghdad mosque. Al-Sadr calls for US troop withdrawal. Iraqi security forces casualties since June 30, 2005. “Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday that 1,342 Iraqi police, soldiers and national guardsmen have died in Iraq since the country assumed sovereignty. That number does not include a dozen Iraqi recruits killed Thursday by gunmen who ambushed their minivan near Kirkuk, according to news reports. It was just one of a string of incidents nationwide that claimed at least 29 in a surge of violence following a mostly peaceful election day.” I wonder who signs the next-of-kin letters for these guys? Refugees. “Syrian officials say 700,000 Iraqis from various ethnic, religious and economic backgrounds have arrived since the U.S.-led invasion, far more than in any other country in the region. The flow has spiked in the past four months. The first trickle of wealthy Iraqis, who U.S. officials say may now be helping finance the insurgency, has been followed by a larger wave of mostly Shiite Muslims and Christians -- groups targeted by the daily violence. U.N. officials say many are doctors, professors, business owners and recent college graduates, the intellectual core that officials in Washington hoped would rebuild Iraq. As they settle in the old stone buildings of the Christian quarter here and in the southern slums of Damascus 185 miles to the south, the enclaves are experiencing soaring rents, overcrowded schools, rising crime and health problems.” Untreated casualties. "U.S.-based military doctors are bracing for a wave of servicemembers returning from Iraq this spring whose treatment for a skin disease has been delayed by the dangerous security situation there. The soldiers who may be infected with cutaneous leishmaniasis are mostly from the 1st Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division, the Army’s ‘Stryker Brigade,’ according to Dr. Alan McGill, infectious disease specialist at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md. ‘We’ve heard rumors of a couple hundred cases in the Stryker Brigade,’ McGill said Friday. But travel in Iraq is so perilous for U.S. troops that health care staff there are choosing to let suspected cases of the disease go, rather than risk a trip to the large medical facilities for diagnosis, said McGill, the U.S. military’s leading leishmaniasis expert.” Commentary Editorial: “Gen. Mike Hagee, commandant of the Marine Corps, said Thursday that Mattis had been ‘counseled concerning his remarks’ and advised that he ‘should have chosen his words more carefully.’ But Hagee also said Mattis ‘intended to reflect the unfortunate and harsh realities of war.’ Perhaps. But declaring war ‘a hell of a hoot’ and saying ‘it's fun to shoot some people’ hardly fits what most veterans, from generals to grunts, describe as the reality of war.” Casualty Reports Local story: Oregon soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Mississippi soldier dies in Iraq. Local story: Delaware Marine killed in Iraq. Local story: Mississippi Guardsman killed in Iraq. Local story: Oklahoma soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: New Jersey soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Michigan soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Iowa soldier wounded in Iraq.