American Soldier Killed in Latest Iraq Violence

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed himself and at least four others in Iraq Tuesday, as foreign aid workers agonized over whether to quit the country in the aftermath of Monday's 35-death bloodbath in Baghdad.

Another American soldier was confirmed killed and six other troops wounded in a Baghdad rocket attack as President Bush (news - web sites) blamed the violence in postwar Iraq on members of Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath party and "foreign terrorists."

Bush, seeking re-election next year amid criticism in some quarters of his Iraq policies, said he expected Syria and Iran to enforce border controls to stop infiltrators.

The latest suicide bombing near a police post in Falluja, west of Baghdad, followed Monday's carnage in the capital in which 35 people died in near-simultaneous attacks on the Red Cross headquarters and three stations of the U.S.-backed police.

With the latest soldier's death, announced Tuesday, the U.S. military casualty toll from hostile fire rose to 114 since Bush declared major combat over on May 1, just one less than the total killed in combat during six weeks of war itself.

Baghdad deputy mayor Faris al-Assam was killed in a drive-by shooting Sunday, the U.S.-led authorities said Tuesday.

Just over a week ago, a tape recording attributed to al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) demanded the United States leave Iraq and vowed more suicide attacks on Americans the world over. Iran's ambassador to France Seid Mohammad Sadegh Kharrazi blamed al Qaeda and remnants of Saddam's regime for the attacks.

But he told a Paris news conference that Washington had only itself to blame for the bloodshed. The Americans, be it in Afghanistan or Iraq, had provoked the development of terrorist movements and terrorist acts in the region, he said.

The bombing of the Baghdad headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) caused deep concern among aid and international agencies operating in Iraq.

But the World Bank envoy to Iraq, Tanwir Ali Agha, told Reuters Tuesday that poor security should not be allowed to stall reconstruction -- since unless Iraqis saw an improvement in their lives the violence would only get worse:

"It's a vicious circle...If you don't start reconstruction because you set the same (security) standards for Iraq as for other countries, then you won't get started. If you don't get started, the circle of violence will get even more vicious."

In Moscow, Russia resumed efforts to revive multi-billion dollar oil deals, on hold since the U.S. invasion, by urging new Iraqi Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum to visit Moscow.

ICRC spokeswoman Nada Doumani said it was weighing its response to the mayhem but would not leave Iraq after 23 years of continuous work through three wars. A spokeswoman at ICRC headquarters in Geneva said the review of its presence in Iraq would focus on Baghdad, because other regions were safer.

Other humanitarian agencies were also trying to balance the urge to pursue their mission against the dangers of doing so.

"Definitely some of our people will be leaving Iraq," Marc Joolens, operations coordinator for medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, told Reuters. "It's a difficult decision because there are needs, but there are also great risks."

Tuesday's suicide bomber blew up his small car outside a school 100 yards from a police station in Falluja, in the "Sunni Triangle" where resistance to occupation is stiffest.

U.S. soldiers sealed off the area after the blast, which set cars ablaze and scattered body parts across the street.

In the northern city of Mosul, newspaper editor Ahmed Shawkat, who had written articles criticizing radical Islamists, was shot dead at his home.

Monday's bombings, in which a U.S. soldier died, followed the killing of three U.S. troops Sunday night and the death of another hours earlier when rockets hit a Baghdad hotel where U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying.

A soldier died and six were wounded in a rocket attack on Monday in Baghdad, the army said Tuesday.

Or a little fair balance like the article below:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1010274/posts

ANOTHER VIETNAM? NO
New York Post ^ | 10/29/03 | RALPH PETERS

Posted on 10/28/2003 11:57 PM PST by kattracks

October 29, 2003 -- LET'S leave the phony pieties and hand-wringing to the presidential aspirants and celebrity journalists. Here's the truth:
* Thirty-six dead in a series of suicide bombings in Baghdad? The chump change of strategy. Cold-blooded, but true.

* Another American soldier killed in a roadside bombing? Every lost service member matters, but at the present casualty rate it would take 15 years for our dead in Iraq to surpass the number of Americans butchered on 9/11. Better to fight like lions than to die like sheep.

* Iraq another Vietnam? Hell, even Vietnam wasn't the Vietnam of left-wing baby-talk politics and campus political astrology. Our Vietnamese enemies represented a mass movement. The Iraqi terrorists represent a small, bloodthirsty movement to oppress the masses.

* Did Operation Iraqi Freedom create terrorists? No. It terrorized the terrorists. Now it's flushing them out of their hiding places. We'll be killing and capturing them for years. But that's the only approach that works.

* Has the War on Terror made Americans less safe? Despite the dishonest claims of Democratic presidential hopefuls, the answer is an unequivocal "No!" Where is the evidence that we're in greater danger now? Where are the terrorist attacks on our cities?

In this war, the only measurement that matters is the absence of attacks. Since 9/11, our government has taken the war to the terrorists and kept us remarkably safe.

* They'll attack America again and prove the War on Terror was a failure. Bull. Oh, we'll eventually be hit again. No counter-terror effort will ever be 100 percent effective. But if Terrorist No. 500 gets through, it doesn't mean there was no value in stopping the first 499. The proof of our success in this war is the undisturbed routine of our daily lives.

* Isn't there some way to stop the attacks in Iraq? Not in the short term. We face those who wish to turn back the clock, in some cases to the days of Saddam's rule, in others to a primitive theocracy. Our enemies are fanatics in the truest sense of the word. Every one we kill is a service to humanity.

* Doesn't the continuation of the attacks mean our approach is flawed? No. There's no magic bullet. This isn't a movie. It's a deadly, long-term struggle for incalculably high stakes.

And there is no rational, responsible alternative to persevering. The only disastrous choice we could make would be to give up.

* How long can the Iraqi terrorists maintain this pace of attacks? We don't know. The Iraqi terrorists themselves don't know. But we should be encouraged, not discouraged, that the best they can do is to ram a few suicide wagons into public buildings. They're not overrunning our troops. They're desperately scraping up all the suicide drivers they can. It's only surprising that they've been able to find so few.

* Do the Iraqi people support the terrorists? No. The Iraqi people just want to live in peace - without Saddam. They don't want our troops to stay forever, but few want us to leave tomorrow. The terror attacks will keep reminding them why they don't want the old regime back. What should we expect in Iraq? Imperfect results. It's an imperfect world. But even a partial success in establishing basic human rights, the rule of law and some form of democracy would be an unprecedented triumph in the region.

* Why are so few nations willing to help us? Because many political leaders want us to fail. Because the United States has returned to its original ideals, supporting freedom, self-determination, the rights of the individual and simple human decency.

Our example terrifies every one of Iraq's neighboring governments and infuriates the Europeans - who long profited from their political love affairs with dictators, even as they damned America for similar behavior.

We have taken a stand for freedom. And freedom still has few friends in this world.

THERE is only one way in which the situation in Iraq resembles Vietnam: Our enemies realize that they can't win militarily. This is a contest of wills much more than a contest of weapons. The terrorists intend to wear us down.

Our enemies are employing media-genic bombings to leap over our soldiers and influence our political leaders and our elections - just as the Vietnamese did. The suicide bombers themselves are deluded madmen, but the men behind the terror campaign calculate that, if they can just maintain a sufficient level of camera-friendly attacks, our military successes and all the progress of our reconstruction efforts will be eclipsed by a mood of dejection in Washington.

If the terrorists turn out to be right, the butcher's bill in the coming years and decades will be vastly higher than the casualty count in Iraq.

Ralph Peters' new book is "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace."

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