Clashes, deaths mark a Baghdad anniversary
As fighting went on in Sadr City, the U.S. reported the loss of five more troops.
BAGHDAD - Errant mortar shells slammed into houses and a funeral tent yesterday, leaving three children among the dead during clashes in a Shiite militia stronghold under siege by U.S. and Iraqi forces on the fifth anniversary of the U.S. capture of the capital.
The fighting came as the U.S. military announced the deaths of five more soldiers. That raised the number of U.S. deaths to 17 since Sunday.
Many Iraqis said hopes that followed the U.S.-led ouster of Saddam Hussein had been quashed.
"On this day five years ago we were dreaming of a bright future, but now we know that our dream has turned into a long nightmare," said Khalid Ibrahim, 45, a teacher from the Sunni area of Azamiyah.
In many ways, Baghdad resembles a war zone more than it did on April 9, 2003, when American Marines stormed into the capital and pulled down a bronze statue of Hussein with the help of dozens of Iraqis.
The city of six million has largely been carved up along sectarian lines, creating a patchwork of neighborhoods surrounded by 10-foot-high concrete walls and dotted with checkpoints.
Violence declined last year and early this year after a cease-fire by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, an influx of 30,000 additional American troops, and a Sunni revolt against al-Qaeda in Iraq. But a recent government crackdown on Sadr's Mahdi Army militia has provoked fierce retaliation, underscoring the fragility of the security gains.
To prevent violence in connection with the anniversary, Baghdad authorities banned traffic citywide from 5 a.m. to midnight.
The streets around Firdous Square - where Hussein's statue used to stand - were largely empty. A few pedestrians passed through, carrying plastic shopping bags. Police officers sat at a checkpoint, ready to stop any unauthorized vehicles.
Street battles continued yesterday in Sadr City, a sprawling district of 2.5 million.
At 10 a.m., two mortar shells apparently fired by suspected Shiite extremists against the security forces fell short and instead struck a funeral tent and a house, killing seven people including three children, and wounding 27, according to police and hospital officials.
The U.S. military's death announcements do not usually specify the locations of attacks. But many - including a soldier who was killed by a roadside bomb yesterday - have been in northeastern Baghdad, a mainly Shiite area that includes Sadr City.
One other U.S. soldier died Tuesday in a roadside bombing to the east of Baghdad and another yesterday to the north of the capital.
Two soldiers assigned to the division in Baghdad also died yesterday of injuries not related to combat. The deaths, which occurred about an hour apart, were announced separately in statements that provided no further details, saying the incidents were under investigation.
The High Cost of a Long War
U.S. soldiers are committing suicide at record levels, young officers are abandoning their military careers, and the heavy use of forces in Iraq has made it harder for the military to fight conflicts that could arise elsewhere.
Unprecedented strains on the nation's all-volunteer military are threatening
the health and readiness of the troops.
Army Vice Chief of Staff Richard Cody told a
House hearing yesterday that troops and their families are being taxed by long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the prospect of years of ongoing conflict in the global war on terror.
Military depots have been working in high gear to repair or rebuild hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment that are being overused and worn out
in harsh battlefield conditions.
Both the Army and Marine Corps have been forced to take equipment from non-deployed units and from pre-positioned stocks to meet the needs of those in combat - meaning troops at home can't train on the equipment.
National Guard units have on average only 61 percent of the equipment needed to be ready for disasters or attacks on
the U.S., Rep. Ike Skelton (D., Mo.) lamented.
Cody and his Marine counterpart, Gen. Robert Magnus, told the committee they're not
sure their forces could handle a new conflict if one came along.
- Associated Press
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