Schoolchildren pass concrete walls in Adhamiya district in Baghdad April 22, 2007. The U.S. military is putting up concrete walls to protect five neighbourhoods in Baghdad in a new strategy some residents said on Sunday would isolate them from other communities and sharpen sectarian tensions. REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani (IRAQ)
Let Freedom Reign! -- C
SECURITY INCIDENTS
Baghdad
Suicide car bombers attack police station in al-Bayaa neighborhood of southwest Baghdad, killing 13 and wounding 82. Five police and 8 civilians dead.
A car bomb in a Shiite enclave in Saidiya in southern Baghdad killed 5 people, and injured 25, although oddly in the next sentence Reuters says that Yarmouk hospital received 7 bodies after the blast. A police officer was also killed by a roadside bomb while responding to the attack.
Baghdad operations command says Iraqi security forces killed 2, arrested 42 suspected militants in past 24 hours.
Gunmen opened fire at a vehicle carrying civil servants, wounding three of them, in the Doura district of Baghdad, police said.
Reuters also reports:
- A roadside bomb wounded two people in central Baghdad, police said.
- The bodies of 11 people were found shot in different districts of Baghdad on Saturday, police said.
- A mortar round landed in Bab al-Muadham area, wounding four people, police said.
Fallujah
Former Baathist assassinated.
Iraqi police patrol attacked by roadside bomb, destroying a vehicle.
VOI also reports a U.S. base hit by mortar attack, no information on damage or casualties.
Mosul
Gunmen attack a bus carrying textile plant workers, slaughter 23 members of the Yazidi religious minority.
Bodies of three brothers abducted 6 days ago are found.
Suwayrah
Three bodies found in the Tigris, bound, blindfolded, and shot.
Shurqat (Salah al-Din province)
Three police offices kidnapped.
Mahmudiyah
A mortar round killed a person and wounded three others.
Hilla
Three U.S. military personnel and an Iraqi civilian injured in IED attack.
Madean (south of Baghdad)
Two car bombs kill one, injure 5.
Kirkuk
Six civilians injured in roadside bomb attack.
Roadside bomb injures two police officers. (Evidently a separate incident.)
Note: As I go to press, ICCC is reporting a Task Force Marne soldier killed by indirect fire (i.e., a mortar attack) on a FOB south of Baghdad; and a Marine killed April 20 in Anbar. However, they don't yet have a live link and I have no confirmation. (This does not correspond to the location of the mortar attack reported by VoI.)
Other News of the Day
Maliki arrives in Cairo for talks with Hosni Mubarak. Announced topic is planning for upcoming donors' conference for Iraq in Sharm el-Sheikh on May 3.
Congressional Democrats plan strategy to follow expected Bush veto of Iraq spending bill. Most likely is a bill providing funding for only two months, according to John Murtha.
Petraeus says security crackdown has reduced violence in Baghdad and Anbar, but violence has increased elsewhere. Calls long-term results uncertain, says Iraqis are just going to have to live with car bombings.
UNICEF and WHO launch $10 million campaign to provide MMR vaccine to Iraqi children, aiming particularly at preventing a measles outbreak. Security concerns loom large in the effort, and may compromise its success. In a related story, Greg Hansen discusses the risks facing people trying to aid Iraq's displaced persons, and the reluctance of donors to come forward.
Barack Obama pledges to end Iraq war if elected.
VA issues new directive to screen OIF and OEF veterans for Traumatic Brain Injury, follow standard protocol for follow-up for those who screen positive. (Link is a PDF.) (Note: This is an important step, taken in response to veterans' advocates. TBI is often far from obvious but can have devastating effects, producing personality changes, difficulty concentrating, depressive symptoms, etc. Often, the person with TBI and friends and family do not recognize that there is a physical basis for these changes, and people's social relationships as well as their productivity can be damaged. In some cases there are very serious long-term consequences such as parkinsonism and early-onset dementia. If the VA really does this, I suspect they are going to find a lot of cases. -- C)
And, here's an example. In this case, the injury was obvious, because the victim was comatose, but as I say, it often is not. Excerpt:
Joedi Wood, who met her husband when he was stationed at Schofield Barracks in 1986, has chronicled her husband's injury with photos, including one that was taken while a medic worked on him as he lay wounded in an Iraqi street.
She said outwardly her husband looks normal since there are no visible signs of a brain injury.
"Before the injury," her husband read at least two books a week, said Joedi, a 1984 Castle High School graduate.
"He's not able to do that anymore. He was going to college and getting As and Bs and was close to getting his bachelor's degree. Now he can't continue that."
Paul Reickhoff notes that in his Friday press conference, the CinC provided Iraqi resistance with a map showing the exact locations of 24 U.S. military outposts in Baghdad. Excerpt ripped off from John Amato:
"One of the things that did happen today that concerned me was that during Bush's press conference he actually showed a graphic that showed 24 urban military outposts in downtown Baghdad. I would argue that showing that to the world and potentially to our enemy might compromise moral - might actually compromise operational security."
"Our enemies aren't stupid. They can look at that and figure out a grid coordinate and try and drop mortars on those exact locations. I mean, this is like a Geraldo moment during the invasion when Geraldo started drawing troop operation movements in the sand. I mean, this is unprecedented in my experience and maybe I'm missing something, but this is a real worry and I wouldn't go throwing this out on the airwaves for everybody to see if I were the President."
Bill Moyers returns to PBS Wednesday night with a smackdown of the media performance leading to the Iraq war. (I am indeed looking forward to this -- C)
In-depth Reporting, Commentary and Analysis
AP's Robert Burns says Pentagon plans long-term commitment of additional U.S. troops only if political progress is seen in Iraq. Goal of the occupation is no longer to defeat the insurgency, but to tamp down violence long enough for factions to reconcile. (The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men gang aft agley . . . -- Robert Burns) Excerpt:
The idea of the troop increase, originally billed by the administration as a temporary "surge," is not to defeat the insurgency. That is not thought possible in the near term. The purpose is to contain the violence - in particular, the sect-on-sect killings in Baghdad - long enough to create an environment in which Iraqi political leaders can move toward conciliation and ordinary Iraqis are persuaded of a viable future.
So far the results are mixed, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this week during a visit to Iraq that he wants to see faster political progress by the Iraqis. "The clock is ticking," he said, referring to the limited time the administration can pursue its strategy before the American public demands an end to the war. Gates also said he told al-Maliki that the United States will not keep fighting indefinitely.
Gates’ remarks reflected the administration’s effort to strike a balance between reassuring the Iraqis of U.S. support and pressuring their leaders to show they can bring the country together and avert a full-scale civil war.
When Bush announced the troop boost in January, administration officials pointedly left unclear how long the extra troops would remain in Iraq. Some, including Gates, suggested that troop levels could be reduced to the previous standard of about 135,000 as early as September - assuming the addition of 21,500 combat troops and roughly 8,000 support troops this spring proved to be an overwhelming success or a clear-cut failure.
Three months later, with troops still flowing into Baghdad, the Pentagon is beginning to take steps that suggest it expects to maintain higher troop levels into 2008 and beyond, yet officials still won’t say whether the increase is intended as a short-term move. Some believe the lack of clarity is a mistake because it adds to the strain on troops and their families, and it might lessen the psychological pressure on the belligerents.
Sahar reflects on the artificiality of the Sunni-Shiite divide. Excerpt:
lowly, slowly I enter a world almost apart from its surroundings – Al-Mehdiya / Al-Dora. It is said to be totally devoid of Shiites now. Is that true??
Are all these people I see walking on the pavements, Sunni??
A strange feeling comes over me – I should feel some sort of kinship. Let me have a closer look.
A woman in an Aba, a simple woman walking the streets wearing a flip-flop.
Another in elegant suit and hijab.
Two young men, college students, in white and gray.
One very dark skinned man carrying a briefcase.
Two young ladies dressed in very modern – but suitably modest jeans and top, one very fair and the other a refreshingly beautiful brunette.
Many, many men and women going about their business, stopping taxis, waving for public mini buses, on their way to work, school or market ..
I try to force a reaction from myself, that these are my kin, Sunnis, like myself. I strive to find a sign; some mark to distinguish them; to endear them to me.
But there is none.
Nothing distinguishes these people from any other people I see everyday on all the streets I pass through.
Some are clean, others not so clean.
Some are old, others young.
Fair and dark.
Tall and short.
Well dressed and skimpy.
There is nothing to tell me they are Sunni. No sign; no mark.
There never was. And to me… there never will be.
The division has been invoked for the sake of politics and interests – and only the illiterate and simple-minded folk fall for the ruse, and become unwitting fuel for this furnace.
Whisker's Roundup of Wounded
Soldier Dan Daniel Porumb was transported to a hospital at the Ramstein base for investigations at the spinal column, the statement noted. Four Romanian troops were injured in the southern Iraqi province of Dhi Qar on Saturday when the armored vehicle in which they were traveling rolled over. Sergeant Victor Cornel Giuseppi Petrila, who suffered mild contusions, already returned to the Romanian camp in Iraq, while the other two soldiers involved in the accident will resume activity sometime next week, the mentioned statement noted.
A Marine who graduated from Hamilton High in 2005 was critically injured in Iraq April 12, while on patrol near Fallujah, in Anbar province. Officials said Pfc. Arturo E. Weber, formerly of Capay, was hit by hostile small-arms fire as he took a position near an armored Humvee. Weber, an infantryman with the 1st Marine Division, was wearing bullet- resistant protection for his groin and chest, but rounds struck him in the abdomen. He was also shot in the hand. Weber's godfather, John Carillo, said the young man has already undergone surgeries, and more are scheduled for wounds to his abdomen. He said Weber was listed in critical condition and on life support in an intensive care unit at Bethesda on Wednesday.
Sergeant Bryan Kutter is in the Minnesota National Guard. The 27-year-old Fargo resident was shot by a sniper in Iraq last June 20th. Kutter is now finishing recovery in Fargo through an Army initiative that allows injured soldiers to finish recuperating at home. Kutter was commanding a Bradley fighting vehicle east of Ramadi (rah-MAH'-dee) when he was shot. The bullet entered Kutter's left elbow, exited his bicep, grazed his neck and stopped in the back collar of his body armor. Kutter still has his arm. Doctors inserted two plates, a pin and 25 screws during the first surgery. In a second surgery, they grafted skin from his leg onto his bicep.
Laid up in a military hospital after surviving a grenade explosion, 27-year-old Mike Mendoza was frustrated he wouldn't be able return to the Marine sniper unit he'd left in Iraq. Mendoza returned home last month after an eight-year stint with the corps. During two tours in Iraq, Mendoza was injured twice. In August, Mendoza took the brunt of a grenade explosion. The shrapnel from the grenade tore a hole in his side that punctured his lungs.
LCpl. Sciotti, a 2004 graduate of Hornell high School, is a machine gunner in the 3rd Battalion Marine Division and was serving his second tour of duty when he was blown off the top of a Humvee by the bomb blast. “He suffered a grade 3 concussion, some internal injuries, and cuts and abrasions,” said his father, Angelo Sciotti, alderman for the city's Fourth Ward. “He was unconscious after he was thrown from the vehicle.”
Sgt. Bruce Dunlap can boast that they have survived a bomb blast that set them aflame and left them clinically dead for two minutes. Dunlap, 28, spent the past four months recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., after he was hit by an improvised explosive device in Iraq. On Dec. 11, he was riding in a Humvee with another soldier about 60 miles outside Baghdad on a normal patrol night, he recalled. As a military police officer, he worked to keep the roads safe, provide water and assistance to Iraqis and search for roadside bombs. “We were looking for IEDs,” he said. “And they found us. But then he saw smoke rising out of the Humvee, and he looked down to see part of his body in flames. He lost consciousness for a while. When he awoke, he couldn’t feel his right leg. He had trouble breathing and couldn’t keep his eyes open. He felt cold. He later was told he had been clinically dead for about two minutes.
Lance Cpl. Gary Huber, a 2006 Homestead High School graduate, remains hospitalized in Germany after the Humvee he and four other Marines were riding in ran into an Improvised Explosive Device in the Fallujah/Baghdad area Monday. Cheryl Huber said her son had two broken legs, shattered vertebrae, a broken ankle and second-degree burns on his arms. Two other Marines in the Humvee were killed in the explosion, she said. Three survived.
