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| Iraq |
| U.S. Army Begins Training Iraqi Militia |
| 2003-08-15 |
| The U.S. Army began training an Iraqi militia force on Friday to take on civil defense duties and pave the way for U.S. forces to leave Iraq. Fifty young men hand-picked by tribal leaders started three weeks of intensive training at one of Saddam Hussein’s main palaces in the northern town of Tikrit, which is now headquarters for the 4th Infantry Division. Good place to start, they’ll get plenty of practice. Lt. Col. Steve Russell said similar training programs were expected to begin in other cities across Iraq shortly. "Our goal is that you will take our place and take over the security of your own people," Russell told recruits and tribal leaders. "We are training you to be the leaders of a larger force that we will be creating in the coming months," he said. "If you apply yourself and work really hard, you too will have a chance to overthrow the government." The militia will start off working with U.S. soldiers in joint patrols, but eventually will be responsible for defending key infrastructure and government buildings, Russell said. The founding members of the new militia will be paid US$125 a month - more than twice the salary of former Iraqi soldiers - and are expected to commit to joining the civil defense force for a minimum of a year, Russell said. Good job for those who qualify, ie, no blood on your hands. In Baghdad, the U.S. military apologized to the people of a Shiite Muslims neighborhood for an incident in which a man was killed after a Black Hawk helicopter blew down an Islamic banner. American forces fired into a crowd of 3,000 demonstrators in Sadr City, a Shiite Muslim slum, after a man shot a rocket-propelled grenade at the soldiers on Wednesday. The shooter was killed and four bystanders were wounded. Not bad, shame about the bystanders. "Our intent is not to alienate the Shiite people," said Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition forces in Iraq. "Apparently, the helicopter blew down the flag or somehow the flag was taken down, and we are taking steps to ensure that doesn’t happen again," he said, answering a barrage of reporters’ questions about why the Black Hawk was hovering above the communications tower. "There is no policy on our part to fly helicopters to communication towers to take down flags," Sanchez said, insisting the banner was mistakenly blown down by the force of the helicopter blades. Some Sadr City residents seemed calmed by the U.S. apology. "I think that this minor incident and misunderstanding is over now. Most of the people are accepting the apology. We will not forget that it was the U.S. soldiers who liberated us from Saddam (Hussein)," said Abid Ali, an auto repair shop owner. It’s just the Shiite clerics who are trying to make a big thing about it, they’ll find something else to complain about. In the southern city of Basra, a roadside bomb killed one British soldier and wounded three others, British military spokesman Capt. Hisham Halawi said. It was the first British combat death in nearly two months. The British casualties Thursday were all army medics traveling in an ambulance on the outskirts of Basra, where residents rioted last weekend to protest fuel shortages and power cuts. At his weekly news conference, Sanchez also sought to emphasize that American forces were changing tactics while not altering U.S. goals of wiping out guerrilla resistance to the U.S.-led occupation. "The conduct of our operations is to take into consideration the Iraqi culture and sensitivities, and we want to be precise in our application of combat power. We are going to continue to be aggressive, we have to be aggressive. We’re fighting a low intensity conflict here," Sanchez said. I like him, he’s not afraid to admit we’re in a fight. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #2 Lt.Gen. Sanchez seems to understand what our presence in Iraq is all about, and is working toward realistic goals. Maybe he needs to be bumped up a notch when this tour ends, and take over somewhere where his kind fo thinking can improve both the quality of our forces, and their morale. I think he's the kind of guy that would stand up to the idiots in the media and set the record straight on a lot of things the media |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-8-15 1:48:19 PM |
| #1 "Hup! Twop! Threep! Foah!..." |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-8-15 10:59:24 AM |