Text 29346, 114 rader
Skriven 2007-07-31 10:51:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Iraq
============




http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8QNJTMG1&show_article=1

U.S. Toll in Iraq Lowest in 8 Months  
 
Jul 31 09:51 AM US/Eastern
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN
Associated Press Writer 

BAGHDAD (AP) - The U.S. military said Tuesday that a Marine was killed 
in fighting west of the capital, pushing the American death toll for 
July to at least 75, the lowest in eight months. 
An Apache helicopter also went down Tuesday after coming under fire in a 
predominantly Shiite area in eastern Baghdad, but both crew members were 
safely evacuated, the military said. 

President Bush's nominee to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meanwhile, 
acknowledged that slow progress in Iraq is hurting America's credibility 
and emboldening Iran's regional ambitions. 

While steady progress has been made on the military front, Iraq's 
political factions have made only limited headway in achieving 
reconciliation, said Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, who has been nominated to 
replace U.S. Gen. Peter Pace as the nation's top military officer. 

Iraq's parliament shrugged off U.S. criticism and adjourned for a month, 
as key lawmakers declared there was no point waiting any longer for 
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to deliver Washington-demanded benchmark 
legislation for their vote. 

Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani closed the final three-hour session Monday 
without a quorum present and declared lawmakers would not reconvene 
until Sept. 4. That date is just 11 days before the top two U.S. 
officials in Iraq—Ambassador Ryan Crocker and military commander Gen. 
David Petraeus—must report to Congress on American progress in taming 
violence and organizing conditions for sectarian reconciliation. 

The recess, coupled with al-Maliki's failure to get the key draft laws 
before legislators, may nourish growing opposition to the war among U.S. 
lawmakers, who could refuse to fund it. 

Critics have questioned how Iraqi legislators could take a summer break 
while U.S. forces are fighting and dying to create conditions under 
which important laws could be passed in the service of ending sectarian 
political divisions and bloodshed. But in leaving parliament, many 
lawmakers blamed al-Maliki, saying he had failed to send them any 
legislation to consider. 

"Even if we sit next month, there's no guarantee that important business 
will be done," said Mahmoud Othman, a prominent Kurdish legislator. The 
parliament already had extended its session by a month, having initially 
planned a recess for July and August. 

Also Monday, a U.S. Marine was killed while conducting combat operations 
in the vast Anbar province west of Baghdad, the military said. 

The attack raised to at least 75 the number of U.S. service members who 
have died in Iraq in July, the lowest number since November 2006, when 
at least 70 U.S. deaths were reported. The monthly toll topped 100 in 
April, May and June. 

In all, at least 3,652 members of the U.S. military have died since the 
Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. 
The figure includes seven military civilians. 

The No. 2 commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, expressed cautious 
optimism about the downturn last week. He said casualties had increased 
as U.S. forces expanded operations into militant strongholds as part of 
a five-month-old security crackdown aimed at clamping off violence in 
Baghdad, but were going down as Americans gained control of the areas. 

"It's an initial positive sign, but I would argue we need a bit more 
time to make an assessment whether it's a true trend," he said. 

In scattered violence reported by police Tuesday, at least 11 people 
were killed or found dead nationwide, including three Iraqi police in a 
drive-by shooting and one soldier in a roadside bombing. A teacher also 
was shot to death while driving to work in a mainly Sunni neighborhood 
in Baghdad. 

Meanwhile, al-Maliki's government faced a threat by the main Sunni bloc 
in parliament to withdraw its Cabinet members if he doesn't meet a 
series of demands by Wednesday. 

The Iraq Accordance Front, which has six Cabinet members and 44 of 
parliament's 275 seats, called for a pardon for security detainees not 
charged with specific crimes and the disbanding of militias, among other 
demands. But the government said the move amounted to blackmail and said 
the Sunni bloc had contributed in creating some of the very policies it 
now criticized. 

A Sunni insurgent group jumped into the debate with an Internet 
statement posted Tuesday. 

"We repeat our call to the Accordance Front to withdraw from the 
government and from the political process that gave those who elected it 
more killing, displacement and misery," the Islamic Army in Iraq said. 

An unmanned U.S. drone also crashed late Monday while landing at an air 
base north of Baghdad, but it did not appear to be from hostile 
activity, the military said separately. 

The U.S. has an estimated two dozen or more unmanned MQ-1 Predators 
doing surveillance over Iraq. They have become mainstays of the U.S. war 
effort, offering round-the-clock airborne "eyes" watching over road 
convoys, tracking nighttime insurgent movements via infrared sensors, 
and occasionally unleashing one of their two Hellfire missiles on a 
target. 

--- PCBoard (R) v15.3/M 10
 * Origin:  (1:226/600)