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Two us soldiers killed in iraq bomb attack Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp?type=worldNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4560430http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp?type=worldNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4560430
13 Mar 2004 09:34
Two U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq bomb attack
By Luke Baker
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed two U.S. soldiers and seriously wounded five others before dawn on Saturday as they were patrolling Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, the U.S. military said.
The blast, which raised to 385 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in action since the war to overthrow Saddam was launched last March, underlined the persistent dangers to U.S. and coalition forces almost a year since Saddam's regime fell.
Those killed were from the 1st Infantry Division and had only recently arrived in the country to take over responsibilities from the 4th Infantry Division, which is being rotated out after nearly a year's deployment.
The deaths came days after two U.S. civilians working for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority were killed by Iraqi police in a new development that suggests insurgents may have infiltrated the U.S.-trained police force.
The employees, who were on secondment from the Department of Defence, were killed as they travelled by car between the towns of Kerbala and Hilla, south of Baghdad. Their Iraqi translator was also killed.
The car was later found by Polish troops in charge of security in the area, with the bodies still in the trunk. It was the first time since the start of the war that U.S. civilians working for the administration had been killed.
The two Americans killed were Fern Holland, 33, who was working on human rights and women's issues, and Robert Zangas, 44, a former serviceman who had returned to Iraq to work as a press officer.
SUSPECTS DETAINED
The U.S. military said six people had been detained in connection with the incident and said it believed most of them were legitimate members of the Iraqi police force.
"Four of those persons were carrying current, and we believe valid, Iraqi police service identification," Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the U.S. Army in Iraq, told a news conference on Friday.
Kimmitt said the fifth suspect was a former policeman in Saddam Hussein's toppled government and the sixth a civilian.
U.S. occupation forces have been hiring and training Iraqis for the police for the past several months in the hope they will eventually be able to take over responsibility for security.
There are now about 70,000 police on duty countrywide, most of them new recruits, but many of them once members of Saddam's security forces. In addition, there are about 25,000 Iraqis serving in the military-style Civil Defence Corps (ICDC).
Senior U.S. officials have complained that their eight-week training programme is not enough to instil a human rights culture and sense of restraint in the way police and ICDC members carry out their work.
Dan Senor, the chief spokesman for Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, defended the security services and the screening process, saying the incident earlier this week had been an exception.
"We have a very robust vetting process for all Iraqis that are hired or rehired into security services and while it is robust it is also not perfect," he told a news conference.
"Individuals slip through the cracks. We act to identify it and remove them immediately."
(Additional reporting by Fiona O'Brien)
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