6 Us Servicemen Killed At Ramadi 10

6 US Servicemen Killed at Ramadi
10 Iraqis Killed, 38 Wounded

Guerrillas near Ramadi detonated a roadside bomb on Wednesday as a Marine convoy went by, killing 5 Marines. A sailor attached to the Marines in Ramadi was shot down dead in Ramadi, as well. Altogether, Guerrillas killed nearly 60 persons in the past month.

A suicide bomber rammed his car into a truck Thursday. The truck was traveling along the Airport road. The bomb killed at least 8 persons, and injured at least 28.

In Mosul, guerrillas assassinated a judge and his bodyguard.

In northern Baghdad, guerrillas detonated a car bomb by remote control, leaving 5 Iraqi soldiers injured.

In Kirkuk, a car bomb hit a convoy of military vehicles, injuring 5 Iraqi soldiers and a young boy.

Armed pirates in Basra robbed a supertanker, according to Reuters. Given that the price of petroleum now seems to have a new target, of around $50 a barrel, this report is a Willie Sutton moment. You rob the supertanker because that is where the money is.

As the scandal of the Downing Street Memo continues to percolate, it was confirmed on Thursday that the United States military used napalm-like incendiary bombs called MK77 in the Iraq War and then lied to their British allies about it. MK77 and napalm materials cling to the skin an inexorably burn the victim, and most countries in the world consider their use barbaric and something close to a war crime. The UK is signatory to a pledge not to use the weapons. British parliamentarians are now revisiting the question of whether MK77 was used against Fallujah last November. Persistent rumors circulated that the US used chemical weapons in that attack. Although MK77 is not classified as a chemical weapon, if it were used, it might help explain the rumors.

Professor Adel Saffy of Bahcesehir University in Istanbul compares the Bush-Blair agreement in April, 2002, to get up a war against Iraq through the manipulation of their publics to the Sykes-Picot agreement between Britain and France during WW I that led to the Middle East being carved up into small weak states (and involved the British duplicitously promising Syria both to the French and to Sharif Hussein of Mecca, the ancestor of Jordan’s King Abdullah II).

Newsday points out that Iran is probably the best friend the new government in Baghdad has in the Middle East region. Contrary to those who blame Iran for guerrilla attacks, there is no evidence whatsoever that Iran has contributed to the insurgency in any significant manner.

Congressman John Conyers held a minority Democratic hearing on the Downing Street Memo and mounting evidence that the Bush administration fixed the intelligence on the basis of which they said they were going to war against Iraq. House Democrats are seeking formal congressional hearings.

Cindy
Sheehan’s speech, given at the hearings, is online. She is the mother of a US soldier killed in Sadr City in April 2004.