Iraq: More U.S. Contractors killed

posted by ewing2001 on Sunday November 02, @07:26AM

Two U.S. Civilian Contractors Killed by Bomb in Iraq

Update: Mother of Soldier Lost in Iraq Writes -His Name Was Evan Ashcraft (11/04 Truthout.org)

Update: "Downing of the Chinook helicopter brought the insurgency to a new level and suggested its growing effectiveness" (NY Times 11/03)
"Spinning out of control" (Guardian 11/03)

Reuters/ABC -Nov. 2

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb blast in the flashpoint Iraqi town of Falluja on Sunday killed two U.S. civilian contractors working for the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and wounded one other, a Corp spokesman said.

After the bomb blast jubilant Iraqis danced on the flaming wreckage of the contractors' vehicles, witnesses in Falluja said.

Sixteen U.S. soldiers were also killed in Iraq on Sunday, 15 when a helicopter was shot down and one in a Baghdad bomb blast.

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As Casualties in Iraq Mount, Will Resolve Falter?

NY Times - November 3

CRAWFORD, Tex., Nov. 2 — The political challenge posed to President Bush by the deadly helicopter attack in Iraq on Sunday is this: how to keep public opinion from swinging against him over Iraq while not abandoning his quest to bring a stable democracy to that country.

Americans have been dying for months in Iraq, attacked by an enemy whose nature remains murky. But the downing of the Chinook helicopter, which killed 16 soldiers, brought the insurgency to a new level and suggested its growing effectiveness.

Up to now the American people, in their majority, have backed the Iraq campaign, and the Bush administration has vowed repeatedly to stay the course, even through an election year.

But administration officials and military commanders have also been dismissive of the insurgency in a way that may now be questioned. On Saturday, Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top American commander in Iraq, said the attacks were "strategically and operationally insignificant."

Whatever the merits of that claim — and the downing of a helicopter would not seem insignificant — it might be beside the point. The well-armed and apparently coordinated guerrilla attacks on American forces, on Iraqis who are cooperating with them, on international institutions and on ordinary civilians seem to have a common purpose: undermining American resolve and sowing doubt in Iraq and elsewhere.

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Spinning out of control

Guardian -Monday November 3, 2003

Yesterday's shooting down of a US Chinook helicopter near Fallujah may have a disproportionate psychological impact on US military operations in Iraq and on US public opinion. The attack was without any doubt a disaster for American forces. With 15 personnel reported killed and many more injured, it was the deadliest such incident since the war officially ended last May. But its significance will be greatly magnified by its context.

The perception, in America itself and abroad, is that the security situation in Iraq is deteriorating, rather than improving as President George Bush claims. US-led coalition forces are now being subjected to an average of over 30 attacks daily. Hardly a day passes without news of one or more US fatalities. Far from being accepted as routine, this toll appears to be convincing more and more ordinary Americans that Mr Bush and his officials are not in control of a situation that they, uniquely, created.

Yesterday's violence follows one of the worst weeks in Iraq since the invasion began, marked by suicide bomb attacks on "soft targets" such as the Red Cross and dozens of civilian in addition to military deaths. Arguments about the extent to which foreign radicals, possibly aided or organised by al-Qaida, are involved, or who is to blame in Washington for faulty or distorted pre-war intelligence assessments, are almost beside the point as long as this maelstrom continues unchecked. The bottom line is relentless violence and mayhem and a US leadership that appears powerless to stop it.

This perception that Mr Bush's Iraq campaign lacks direction and is one over which he is losing control is exemplified, even symbolised, by the dramatic loss of the Chinook. This sense of rudderlessness may prove to be even more damaging to him in the long run than the many controversies that still surround his decision to go to war in the first place.

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