| iraq
U.S. Fatalities
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thanks to Information Clearing House
U.S. General Says Iraqi Rebels Getting Stronger
In a week that has already seen five more U.S. combat deaths and the wounding of 41 soldiers, the commander of military forces in Iraq indicated Thursday that resistance to the occupying troops was strengthening and warned Americans to brace for more casualties.
With 313 American soldiers dead in the conflict so far, more than half since President Bush declared major combat over May 1, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told reporters at a weekly news briefing here, "This is still wartime."
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US wounded in the shadows
On July 2, President George W Bush, in referring to combat operations in Iraq, said, "Bring them on." And bring it on they have. As everyone knows, coalition forces, primarily American, are being killed and wounded on a regular basis - 357 US and British fatalities to date. But while the US dead, whether in combat operations or from other causes, are reported publicly, the wounded have almost disappeared from public view. And their numbers are growing, and providing appropriate care is an increasing burden for the military and civilian health systems.
How many wounded and injured are there? Nobody really knows for sure. Understandably, it is difficult to be precise when more casualties are being created on a near daily basis. But gathering data is difficult for other reasons.
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Unknown illness sweeps US troops
THE outbreak of pneumonia-like symptoms in US troops serving in Iraq could be the harbinger of a new and potentially enormous wave of Gulf war syndrome cases, according to American veterans' organisations and defence analysts.
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WMD: 'You have got to be kidding
To the surprise of few, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency-led survey group hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has admitted in his latest report released on Thursday that none have yet been unearthed.
But the Iraq Survey Group's leader, David Kay, did say that Saddam Hussein "remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons". However, they have not found any, nor any evidence of any.
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'There are no shining weapons'
Survey report draws a blank
The man in charge of a £180m ($300m) hunt for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction last night admitted that no weapon stocks had been found, and that all a three-month search had uncovered was a single vial containing a possible strain of biological agent.
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This is Going to be a Longer War than We Thought
This is about as straight & clear as you can say it: Henry Allen, in his Foreword to Another Vietnam, writes:
I'd imagined them looking sly but pathetic and stupid--either misguided nationalists or stooges of the communist slave masters. Once we did the old carrot-and-stick drill on them, they'd come over to where the Ford Fairlanes and Princess telephones were, maybe even get a chance to demonstrate how to cut barbed wire on the Ed Sullivan Show, in the manner of Sam Snead hitting cotton golf balls into the audience.
This was in 1966. I was on a Marine civic action team along the coast, south of Da Nang, in Chu Lai, winning hearts and minds by giving away flour, cement, roofing tin, fishing engines, medical care, all the latest nation-building goodies. I had an easy time of it. Why would the Viet Cong want to kill the guys giving them the goodies?
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