| Can't find the original article on this one. I assume it's there someplace... |
By Robert F. Worth with Kirk Semple The New York Times, Thursday 10 July 2003
In another wave of adversity for American troops in Iraq, two more soldiers were killed by insurgents and an Iraqi police contingent demanded that the Americans who trained them leave the police station. The casualties occurred late Wednesday in two separate ambushes. In one incident, a soldier was fatally shot when his convoy came under attack from small-arms fire near the city of Al Mahmudiya, the United States Central Command said today. In a separate attack, another soldier was killed and one wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade at an undisclosed location, the military said. The military also reported that a soldier died on Wednesday from "a non-hostile gunshot incident."
At least 37 members of coalition forces, 31 of them American, have been killed in combat since May 1 when President Bush declared the end of major combat operations, the military said. An additional 46 coalition members have been killed in non-hostile incidents. President Bush said today, hours after the attacks, that the United States would not be deterred from its mission in Iraq despite the persistent security threat posed by Iraqi insurgents. "There's no question we've got a security issue in Iraq," Mr. Bush said in Gabarone, Botswana, where he arrived today on his five-nation tour of Africa. "We're just going to have to deal with it person by person. We're going to have to remain tough."
Also today, Iraqi police officers in Falluja, 35 miles west of the capital, staged a protest and demanded that American soldiers move out of the police headquarters, saying the American presence was unnecessary, according to a report and video footage broadcast by Al Arabiya, a Middle Eastern television station. The Iraqi police officers threatened a mass resignation if the Americans did not heed their demand. "We have the ability to protect these sites," said Riyadh Abdel-Latif, the town's police chief, according to The Associated Press. "The presence of Americans endangers us. We asked the Americans more than a month and a half ago to leave Falluja." It was the first major sign of tension between the American military and the Iraqi police force, which is being trained by Americans under the supervision of Bernard F. Kerik, former New York City police commissioner. Some members of Iraq's newly trained police force have said they worry that working alongside coalition soldiers will put them at risk. On Saturday, seven police recruits were killed in Ramadi, 40 miles west of Falluja, when a bomb packed into a utility pole exploded during the town's first police graduation ceremony.
Falluja, where today's demonstration took place, has been the center of numerous attacks and angry protests against the American presence in Iraq. Many local residents blamed the soldiers for the bomb attack on Saturday, and for another explosion in a mosque in the town last week in which an imam was killed. The American military said that the blast was caused by people building bombs in the mosque.
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