Yesterday's Iraqi victims of violence, as reported by...
The New York Times:
"Blaming Politics, Iraqi Antigraft Official Vows to Quit" by ALISSA J. RUBIN
BAGHDAD, Sept. 6 — Iraq’s highest ranking anticorruption officer, Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, has asked Iraq’s prime minister to accept his resignation and, in an interview Thursday, cited political pressure as the reason he sought to leave his job.
Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi complained about the commission’s style during his tenure.
[But the Times won't tell you that Republican lobbying firm headed by former RNC chairman and current Miss. governor Haley Barbour is working to bring down Malaki!
In other developments on Thursday, the United States military killed 14 people early in the day when it fired on a Shiite-majority neighborhood where the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militant group linked to Moktada al-Sadr, has been active, according to Iraqi officials.
The United States military confirmed the attack and said it was taking aim at criminal elements in Al Washash, a poor neighborhood of humble houses and small, rickety markets in western Baghdad.
The militiamen targeted on Thursday were “involved in murder, extortion of local citizens and attacks on local police,” the American military said in a statement. The military said it was concentrating on Mahdi units that were continuing to fight Americans despite Mr. Sadr’s call last week for his group to suspend attacks on Americans and on other Shiite factions.
The military, using the Arabic name for Mr. Sadr’s group:
“It appears many honorable members of Jaish al-Mahdi are fulfilling Sadr’s pledge of honor to stop attacks and reduce the violence; however, a few attacks on coalition forces and innocent Iraqis have continued. Our assumption is that these groups are not honoring Sadr’s orders and thus will not be subject to the restraint we have observed for those who are responding to Sadr’s orders.”
According to people in Washash who asked not to be identified, there were 20 to 30 explosions, and they said five local Mahdi Army leaders and eight foot soldiers were killed. Eight houses and 10 cars were destroyed, the people said. They did not mention any civilian deaths, although Iraqi officials said nine people were wounded.
[Really, Times? REALLY?]
In Kirkuk, where doctors have increasingly become targets for insurgents, a well-known Christian doctor, Riadh Ramo, was kidnapped at his clinic in the center of the city.
In Baghdad, 12 unidentified bodies were found on Thursday, according to an Interior Ministry spokesman who asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the subject."
[Do those numbers add up -- roughly -- to 35 people being reported killed per day -- by their own numbers, reader?
The real number of Iraqis killed per day is 300, reader.
Boston Globe:
"Iraqi, US forces said to kill 14 in battle" by Sam Enriquez/Los Angeles Times September 7, 2007
BAGHDAD - Iraqi and US special forces waged a gun battle here with alleged Shi'ite militia members early yesterday, leaving 14 Iraqis dead, nine injured, and several houses in ruins, witnesses and US military officials said.
North of the capital, thousands of joint forces began a sweep of suspected Sunni insurgent hide-outs, and in the western Anbar province, a US presidential hopeful gave Iraqi leaders a pointed lesson in American history.
[So who was an asshole?]
The violence in Baghdad began before dawn as soldiers searched the Washash neighborhood on the city's west side. More than a dozen gunmen hidden on rooftops opened fire on the joint forces, US military officials said.
US officials said the soldiers were seeking a group of Shi'ite extremists who were believed to be setting up makeshift roadblocks to extort residents and kill Sunni Muslims. Witnesses said families escaping the summer heat were sleeping on rooftops when the shooting began after 2 a.m.
More than 26,000 Iraqi and US troops also stepped up pressure against insurgents, including members of Al Qaeda of Iraq, further north in the provinces of Salahaddin and Diyala, US military officials said.
Meanwhile, in western Anbar province, where President Bush on Monday heralded what he said can be achieved with the military surge, Senator Joe Biden, Democrat of Delaware, had a different message during a visit yesterday.
[Oh, so it was SMILIN' JOE, huh?
Gee, first Bush, now Biden.
That's enough to make an Iraqi reach for an airsick bag!!]
The Democratic presidential candidate said he doubted that Iraq's political leaders were capable of reconciling the various religious and ethnic divisions.
[Yeah, and AmeriKa is just this placid, hand-holding, we-all-get-along DREAM STATE, isn't it?]
Looking to next week's congressional hearings on Iraq, Biden warned a group of Sunni sheiks and top government leaders of consequences if they failed to reconcile relations among Kurds, Shi'ites and Sunnis:
"In America, we're waiting to see how extensive that cooperation will be. If it is extensive, you can count on America to stay. If it is not, we can say goodbye now."
[Byyyye!]
Acknowledging the difficulty of building a democracy from scratch, Biden told Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his two vice presidents that it took America's founding fathers 13 years to agree on a final draft of the Constitution.
Biden, chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
"Maybe you'll do better than we did, but, respectfully, I doubt it."
[What a shitstinking, arrogant elitist puke!!
Yup, we BETTER than everybody!!
Oh, I just love the shitstench of AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM!!
Baaaarrrffff!]
The web:
"U.S. Attack in Baghdad Reported to Kill 14" by Associated Press September 7, 2007
BAGHDAD -- U.S. and Iraqi troops backed by attack aircraft clashed with suspected Shiite militiamen before dawn Thursday in Baghdad, bombing houses and battling more than a dozen snipers on rooftops. Residents and police said at least 14 people were killed.
A middle-aged man, standing next to a hole in his roof and waving a piece of shrapnel he found after Thursday's raid, told Associated Press Television News:
''The Iraqi parties are quarreling over power and the people are dying. We are fed up.''
Video from APTN showed houses with their roofs caved in, and others completely destroyed.
U.S. troops also targeted Sunni militants linked to al-Qaida in Iraq in several raids north of Baghdad on Thursday, killing six suspected insurgents and detaining 25, the military said.
The number of U.S. troops in Iraq has climbed to a record high of 168,000, and is moving toward a peak of 172,000 in the coming weeks -- a level that could extend into December, a senior military official said Thursday.
Bombings, shootings and mortar attacks left at least 28 Iraqis dead nationwide, including 18 bullet-riddled bodies that turned up in Baghdad and south of the capital.
The operation in the western Baghdad area of Washash involved Iraqi and U.S. special forces acting on a tip against a Shiite cell accused of attacking local police and engaging in extortion as well as execution-style killings of Sunnis, the military said.
The troops called for airstrikes after coming under fire from more than a dozen snipers on the rooftops of surrounding buildings. Residents reported hearing explosions at about 3 a.m. that persisted for nearly an hour.
A police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity for his own safety, said U.S. helicopters had attacked the area, killing 14 civilians and wounding 10. There was confusion at the scene, however, as some residents said they thought it had been a mortar attack and said 27 people had been killed."
[So, WHY are AmeriKa's lead War Dailies HIDING the carnage in Iraq?
Skewed reports and ommitted evidence?
Why? They ALL have access to AP reports!!!! WTF?!]
