soc.veterans

> Grim milestone: 4,000 U.S. service employees dead in Iraq war

> a.. NEW: As Iraq war enters sixth year, American death toll rises to
> 4,000
>
> b.. NEW: Four U.S. soldiers killed when their vehicle was hit by an IED
>
> c.. At least 30 Iraqis died Sunday; 80,000 to 150,000 or more killed
> since war's start
>
> d.. Iraq security adviser said Sunday that Iraq war is "well worth
> fighting"
>
> BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Four U.S. soldiers died in a roadside bombing in
> Iraq on Sunday, military officials reported, bringing the American toll in
> the 5-year-old war to the grim milestone of 4,000 deaths. Eight of those
> killed were civilians working for the Pentagon.
>
> The four were killed when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive
> device while patrolling a neighborhood in southern Baghdad, the U.S.
> military headquarters in Iraq reported Sunday night. A fifth soldier was
> wounded in the attack, which took place about 10 a.m. (3 a.m. ET).
>
> The U.S. milestone comes just days after Americans marked the fifth
> anniversary of the start of the war.
>
> Meanwhile, estimates of the Iraqi death toll range from about 80,000 to
> the hundreds of thousands, with another 2 million forced to leave the
> country and 2.5 million people displaced within Iraq, according to the
> U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
>
> President Bush ordered U.S. troops into Iraq on March 19, 2003, after
> months of warnings that then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was concealing
> stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and efforts to build a
> nuclear bomb.
>
> U.N. weapons inspectors found no sign of banned weapons before the
> invasion, and the CIA later concluded that Iraq had dismantled its weapons
> programs in the 1990s.
>
> Hussein's government fell in early April 2003, and Iraq's new government
> executed him in December 2006.
>
> The news of the 4,000 mark came on the same day that Iraq's national
> security adviser urged Americans to be patient with the progress of the
> war, contending that it is "well worth fighting" because it has
> implications about "global terror."
>
> "This is global terrorism hitting everywhere, and they have chosen Iraq to
> be a battlefield. And we have to take them on," Mowaffak al-Rubaie said
> Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."
>
> "If we don't prevail, if we don't succeed in this war, then we are doomed
> forever," he said. "I understand and sympathize with the mothers, with the
> widows, with the children who have lost their beloved ones in this
> country.
>
> "But honestly, it is well worth fighting and well worth investing the
> money and the treasure and the sweat and the tears in Iraq."
>
> Nearly 160,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, and the war has cost U.S.
> taxpayers about $600 billion, according to the House Budget Committee.
>
> The conflict is now widely unpopular among Americans: A CNN-Opinion
> Research Corp. poll out Wednesday found only 32 percent of Americans
> support the conflict. And 61 percent said they want the next president to
> remove most U.S. troops within a few months of taking office.
>
> In the weekly Democratic radio address Saturday, Sen. Bob Menendez of New
> Jersey said President Bush "took us to war on the wings of a lie."
>
> Menendez said that the war has depleted the resources and morale of the
> U.S. military; diverted national attention away from the war in
> Afghanistan, where al Qaeda is regrouping; and hurt the hunt for Osama bin
> Laden. The Iraq war has not made Americans safer, Menendez said, but has
> instead hurt the U.S. economy.
>
> The senator called for a "responsible new direction" regarding Iraq.
>
> CNN learned last week, from several U.S. military officials familiar with
> the recommendations but not authorized to speak on the record, that senior
> U.S. military officials are preparing to recommend to Bush a four- to
> six-week "pause" in additional troop withdrawals from Iraq after the last
> of the "surge" brigades leaves in July.
>
> "If the conditions on the ground dictate that we have to have a pause,
> then we will have to have a pause," al-Rubaie said.
>
> The return of all five brigades added to the Iraq contingent last year
> could reduce troop levels by up to 30,000, but still leave approximately
> 130,000 or more troops in Iraq.
>
> Al-Rubaie emphasized Sunday that any drawdown of U.S. troops "has to be
> based on the conditions on the ground."
>
> "It depends on the development and the growth and the equipment and the
> capabilities of the Iraqi security forces, and the preparedness of the
> Iraqi security forces," he said. "This should not be a purely political
> decision. It should be also a technical, military and intelligence
> decision."
>
> But there has been too much "foot-dragging on key governance questions in
> Iraq," Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said on CNN on Sunday. "It
> seems to me you put off those troop withdrawals, you send exactly the
> wrong message to the Iraqis."
>
> On Wednesday, Bush will visit the Pentagon to be briefed by the Joint
> Chiefs of Staff, chaired by Adm. Michael Mullen.
>
> The American troop level in Iraq "depends on the negotiations that we are
> engaged in now between the government of Iraq and the United States
> government," al-Rubaie said.
>
> When conditions warrant the withdrawal of American troops, the Iraqis will
> say "'Thank you very much, indeed,' " al-Rubaie said. "A big, big thank
> you for the United States of America for liberating Iraq, for helping us
> in sustaining the security gains in Iraq ... and we will give them a very,
> very good farewell party then."
>
> Responding to recent remarks from U.S. presidential candidates that Iraqis
> are not taking responsibility for their own future, al-Rubaie said Iraqis
> are making political and security gains.
>
> "Literally by the day and by the week, we are gradually assuming more
> responsibility," he said, noting that Iraqis have taken responsibility for
> security in many provinces.
>
> Other developments:
>
> . U.S. troops raided a suspected suicide bomber cell in Diyala province on
> Sunday, killing a dozen militants, half of whom had shaved their bodies --
> which the U.S. military says indicates they were in the final stage of
> preparation for a suicide attack. Diyala province stretches north and east
> of Baghdad and has been a major front for U.S. troops fighting militants.
>
> . Several mortars landed in Baghdad's International Zone on Sunday,
> according to the Interior Ministry. A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said there
> were no major casualties.
>
> . A suicide car bomb exploded at a fuel station Sunday in a predominantly
> Shiite neighborhood in northwest Baghdad, killing seven people and
> wounding 12 others, the Interior Ministry said.
>
> . A suicide bomber detonated a truck full of explosives outside the main
> gate of an Iraqi military base in Mosul, killing at least 10 Iraqi
> soldiers and wounding 35 people, including 20 soldiers, Mosul police said.
> The U.S. military put the death toll higher, at 12.
>
> . A mortar round landed in a Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad,
> killing seven people and injuring nine others, a ministry official said.
> Six more mortar rounds landed in other Baghdad neighborhoods Sunday night,
> killing three people, the Interior Ministry said.
>
> . In southeastern Baghdad, gunmen riding in at least two cars opened fire
> on a crowded outdoor market, killing at least three people and wounding 17
> others, the Interior Ministry said.
>
> . A suicide bomber detonated a small truck rigged with explosives outside
> a local Awakening Council leader's house just east of Samarra on Saturday,
> killing at least five people and wounding 13 others, a Samarra police
> official said. Awakening Councils are largely Sunni security groups that
> have been recruited by the U.S. military.
>
>