Sunday, March 23, 2008

Easter in Iraq
4000 U.S. troops dead


US soldiers sing as they celebrate Easter with a sunrise service at Camp Victory, in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, March 23, 2008. (AP photo/Dusan Vranic)

A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000.

AP

The cautious language of the report reflects the writer's awareness that the U.S. military does what it can to minimize the U.S. death toll. For example, dead contractors don't count.

Nor, of course, do most of the Iraqi victims. The Washington Post reports widespread carnage on Sunday.

In the northern city of Mosul, a suicide attacker detonated an explosives-laden truck after driving through the main gate of an Iraqi army headquarters. The blast killed 15 Iraqi soldiers and wounded 42.

In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded in the western neighborhood of Sholeh at about 2:30 p.m., killing five Iraqi civilians and wounding seven. Gunmen in the southern part of the capital opened fire in a market, killing six civilians and injuring 17 others. Also in southern Baghdad, U.S. forces in helicopters killed 15 gunmen and injured 17, according to Interior Ministry sources.

In central Baghdad, mortar rounds demolished houses, killing two civilians, including a child. At least two people also were killed when mortar shells, apparently aimed at the Green Zone, landed on their houses in the Kamaliya district in the eastern part of the city.

On Baghdad's west side, in the Mansour area, one person was killed in a roadside bombing, Interior Ministry sources said.

In Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, gunmen in Balad Ruz attacked the convoy of an emergency battalion commander, killing him and three of his bodyguards. Four Iraqi soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in the city. Near Baqubah, also northeast of Baghdad, a battalion commander was fatally shot outside his house. In downtown Baqubah, a gunman killed a policeman and injured two others.

Apparently this ghastly catalogue is only important enough to the Washington Post to be warehoused on page A9.


U.S. Army soldiers scramble out of a bunker after getting the "all clear" signal after a car bomb disrupted a sunrise worship service to celebrate Easter Sunday at Forward Operating Base Marez in Mosul, 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq on Sunday, March 23, 2008. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

2 comments:

Mark Prime (tpm/Confession Zero) said...

Easters such a peaceful time of year.

It is so sad that we've not yet pulled out of this immoral occupation and just as sad, if not more, that we have not impeached, removed and jailed the lot of the designers of all this bloodshed...

Anonymous said...

I'm a Soldier in the U.S. Army and when I heard news of the 4000 death mark I became sick to my stomach. I'm lucky enough to have been to Iraq and return home to my family but so many of my fellow Soldiers have not been as fortunate. And in my heart i feel like every one of those 4000 deaths our president is to be blamed for.

I've opened up a discussion on my blog so I can talk to people and answer their questions and hopefully make people understand that all military are supporting this war and that every one of those deaths was important and unneeded. I'd like it you'd stop by and toss in your two cents.

I'm all for defending my country but U.S. did not need to be defended from Iraq.