US resolute
after 'tragic day'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3235989.stm
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has vowed the United States will
stay in Iraq until the battle is won, despite the loss of 18 US
lives in one day.
"In a long hard war, we are going to have tragic days," Mr Rumsfeld
said.
In the heaviest US losses since the height of the war, 15 soldiers
were killed and 21 wounded when a Chinook helicopter was downed
near Falluja.
US military officials and witnesses said the giant aircraft had
been shot down early on Sunday.
And in Falluja itself, a roadside bomb killed two American civilian
contractors while another soldier was killed by a bomb in
Baghdad.
The US opposition has cited the latest casualties as evidence that
President Bush's policies in Iraq are failing.
There had not been such loss of American life on one day in Iraq
since 23 March - during the war to oust Saddam Hussein - when 28
soldiers were killed in various clashes, 18 of them in a single
battle at Nasiriya.
Iraqis in Falluja - a centre of opposition to the US-led occupation
- openly welcomed the American casualties.
"This was a new lesson from the resistance, a lesson to the greedy
aggressors," one Iraqi told AP news agency in Falluja.
At the scene of the roadside bomb, Iraqis danced on the wreckage
and one youth sported a US helmet.
Missile threat
Mr Rumsfeld said he accepted that troops faced a continuing risk of
attack, including that of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).
"We've known about surface-to-air missiles since before we went
in," he said.
"They are dangerous and they exist in that country in large
numbers, as they do in that part of the world. So it's always a
risk."
Hundreds of SAMs, mainly Russian-made, are said to be still
scattered across Iraq despite a coalition campaign to collect them
with a reward of $500 offered per missile.
Paul Bremer, the US civil administrator in Iraq, suggested on
Sunday that the situation was "getting worse".
"We've seen a much more sophisticated use of improvised explosive
devices against coalition forces," he said.
'Misled into war'
One of the leading contenders for the Democrat candidacy in next
year's US presidential election, Wesley Clark, launched a stinging
attack ion the Bush administration's record in Iraq after Sunday's
attacks.
"We were misled into this conflict without a real strategy for
success," Mr Clark, a former commander of Nato, told the Associated
Press.
Another Democrat contender, Dick Gephardt, called on President Bush
to treat other foreign leaders "with respect" and seek their help
to end the conflict.
Meanwhile, the US Senate, which is investigating US intelligence
used to justify the war in Iraq, received a promise from the
government on Sunday that it would be given all the files it had
requested.
The head of the committee, Senator Pat Roberts, said he had been
told that all the documents required would be made available, but
he did not say when.
A leading Democrat on the Senate committee said he would only be
satisfied once the documents had actually been received.
