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Thursday, February 17, 2005

War News for Thursday, February 17, 2005 Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi soldiers killed by car bomb near Duluiyah. Bring ‘em on: Iraqi colonel killed in patrol ambush near Kirkuk. Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqi soldiers killed in mortar attack near Dujail. Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqi policemen killed in patrol ambush near Tikrit. Bring ‘em on: Oil pipelines sabotaged neat Kirkuk and Beiji. Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed in action in al-Anbar province. Bring ‘em on: Seven Iraqi soldiers wounded by roadside bomb near Kirkuk. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents execute eight Iraqis working for US forces near Dujail. Bring ‘em on: Four US soldiers wounded by roadside bomb near Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi policeman, eight insurgents killed in heavy fighting near Baquba. Bring ‘em on: Fighting reported in Ramadi and Samarra. Bring ‘em on: US convoy ambushed near Mosul. Bring ‘em on: Crowd kills suspected suicide bomber in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: US troops fighting insurgents in central Baghdad. Two US soldiers killed, two injured in two vehicle accidents. Iraqi officials to certify election results. Iraqi police on alert in Karbala in preparation for Ashura. Rummy don’t need no stinking exit strategy. “Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declined to rule out some sort of a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq Wednesday, under sharp questioning from senators skeptical of the Bush administration's request for $81.9 billion more in emergency war funds.” Arrogance. "Two dozen members of the House Armed Services Committee had not yet had their turn to question Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at yesterday's hearings when he decided he had had enough. At 12:54, he announced that at 1 p.m. he would be taking a break and then going to another hearing in the Senate. ‘We're going to have to get out and get lunch and get over there,’ he said. When the questioning continued for four more minutes, Rumsfeld picked up his briefcase and began to pack up his papers. The chairman, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), apologized to his colleagues for a rather ‘unusual’ situation." Blowback. “The insurgency in Iraq continues to baffle the U.S. military and intelligence communities, and the U.S. occupation has become a potent recruiting tool for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, top U.S. national security officials told Congress yesterday.” Commentary Opinion: “How do so many Americans wonder why more Iraqis each day are supporting both violent and non-violent movements of resistance to the occupation when after the U.S. government promised to help rebuild Iraq, a mere 2 percent of reconstruction contracts were awarded to Iraqi concerns and the infrastructure lies in shambles? It's because overall, mainstream media reportage in the United States about the occupation in Iraq is being censured, distorted, threatened by the military and controlled by corporations that own the outlets.” Opinion: “The proposed $500,000 death benefit payout is designed only for families of soldiers killed in either Iraq or Afghanistan. It is not applicable to anyone else in the military killed in the line of duty. These benefits offer substantial incentives for soldiers to die in two of the most dangerous places on the planet and their "reward" is the knowledge that their family will be provided for after they are gone. It sounds like the same thing Saddam did. He paid people who were martyrs for their cause and you can bet that our soldiers' families will be told that theirs kids died for the noble cause of ending tyranny. And while they might not be promised a spot in heaven, you can be sure this rhetoric will invoke Bush's never-ending themes of freedom -- even though Iraq will not be truly free until Bush executes a real exit strategy.” Analysis: “Why, one wonders, should such remarks lead to the resignation of a professional who has been in the news business for 23 years? If freedom of the press still exists, he should have been asked to support his claims or at least to make the videotape of his remarks available to the public. Or was it simply American patriotic fervor which led him to retract his allegations and if so, where is this leading the media?” Casualty Reports Local story: Florida soldier dies in Iraq. Local story: Iowa soldier dies in Iraq. Local story: Louisiana soldier dies in Iraq. Local story: West Virginia Marine wounded in Iraq.

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