Five soldiers dead in 24 Hours

By Steve Gilliard

5 G.I.'s Killed in Iraq in 24 Hours
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

AQUBA, Iraq, July 26 — Three American soldiers with the Fourth Infantry Division were killed and four were wounded here today after an assailant, who witnesses said was probably perched inside the children's hospital the troops were guarding, threw a grenade into a group of soldiers who were playing a game of cards next to the building.

Another American soldier was killed today and two others were wounded in an attack on an Army convoy in Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad, military officials said. And early Sunday, a soldier from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was killed in a grenade attack. A military spokesman had no details on the location of the attack.

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"I saw for myself, three people died and one was critically injured," said Hussein Ali, a 30-year-old cafeteria worker at the hospital who was allowed to leave. The grenade "was thrown from inside," he said, adding: "I heard a voice and a loud sound, and then I saw three people dead."

Max Cleland, former US Senator and triple amputee was on Bill Moyer's NOW Friday. A decent man brought into government by Jimmy Carter, where he ran the VA. He lost his seat because stupid people believed he was soft on defense. One of the most disgraceful election returns in years.

Atrios quoted part of what he said, but he made another statement which is worthy of being repeated.

CLELAND: It is a quagmire.

SESNO: Why? Why?

CLELAND: Because. There's so many similarities here. You have an assessment, which even Wolfowicz now realizes we underestimated the enemy. That was Dean Rusk's view a few years into Vietnam.

You get the big land force in there. You know. You don't cure the problem. And you're exposed. And then the guerrilla warfare comes after you. That's Vietnam. That's the quagmire we're in in Iraq. There is no exit strategy. Why? Because we want to do a pre-emptive war. We want to do it all alone.
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CLELAND: First of all, you got to go back and get the UN in there. we've got to go back to the very people we dissed. And we got to say to Russia and Germany and France and the UN and the Security Council, "We're in deep trouble. Help us out."

We got to make a UN protectorate, and that's gonna take a long time.

When they attack you from inside a children's hospital you have a lot of problems.

Posted July 27, 2003 02:53 AM