This is a story now running on AOL under the title of TWO AMERICAN SOLDIERS KILLED. What gets me is that only two paragraphs relate to that fact, while the rest is about the killing of the sons and the expected aftermath of it! Is the continued daily killing of our soldiers just a side comment now? And the media uses such a headline to tout the message of the Administration? This is getting really sickening to me!
BAGHDAD (July 23) - Two American soldiers were killed in ambushes in Iraq on Wednesday, denting any U.S. hopes that the deaths of Saddam Hussein's sons, Odai and Qusai, would snuff out a guerrilla insurgency against occupying forces.
An audio tape, purportedly by Saddam and aired by Al Arabiya television, urged Iraqis to keep fighting U.S. forces. The tape was dated July 20 -- two days before Odai and Qusai were killed in a six-hour gunbattle with American troops.
A U.S. military spokesman said one soldier was killed and seven wounded when two vehicles hit a mine near the northern town of Mosul. The brothers had been hiding there in a villa which 200 U.S. soldiers, backed by helicopters, attacked with machine-guns and rockets on Tuesday.
In a separate ambush, another soldier was killed and two wounded when their convoy was attacked near the restive town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, a hotspot of the ''Sunni triangle'' from where Saddam drew much of his support.
U.S. officials had said they feared an upsurge in attacks as die-hard Saddam loyalists sought to avenge his sons. In Mosul, a dozen youths even staged a brief pro-Saddam protest, waving his picture and chanting their loyalty to the death.
Officers said killing Odai and Qusai would ultimately help silence guerrillas who have killed 41 American soldiers since President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1, and give fresh impetus to the search for Saddam himself.
''It confirms that we will succeed in our hunt for former regime members, and in particular Saddam Hussein, wherever they are and however long it takes,'' Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of ground forces in Iraq, said on Tuesday.
Celebratory shots rang out in Baghdad overnight, but skeptical Iraqis said they wanted proof of the deaths.
Sanchez told a news conference late on Tuesday he would provide evidence to show beyond doubt that Odai, 39, and 37-year-old Qusai, Saddam's ''crown prince,'' were dead.
He said the two were tracked down after a tip-off from a walk-in informant who will probably get the two $15-million rewards the United States offered for information on their whereabouts. Mosul residents said the owner of the villa where they were hiding may have betrayed them to claim the cash.
DEFIANT MESSAGE
Dubai-based Al Arabiya television aired an audio tape in which a voice said to be Saddam's hailed what it called the ''resistance'' to U.S. occupation.
''The battle is not over yet,'' the taped message said.
''We tell our armed forces and our people that if America has achieved military superiority, it will not achieve supremacy in the battle of wills against the Iraqi people.''
Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, said there was a risk of revenge attacks by Saddam loyalists.
''We could see attacks in the next few days as revenge. But you have to remember that a lot of the attacks that are taking place are being based on the idea that somehow the Saddams are coming back, that he and his sons are coming back,'' he said.
''Well, they're not coming back.''
The United States has offered $25 million for information leading to the capture or killing of Saddam.
''I think we now have a possibility of somebody coming with the big one, somebody who really wants to get the $25 million reward,'' said Bremer, on a visit to the United States. ''It will move the day a bit closer when we get our hands on the father.''
U.S. officials have blamed remnants of Saddam's Baath party and Odai's feared Saddam Fedayeen militia for attacks.
But other groups have also claimed responsibility for the attacks, distancing themselves from Saddam's secular Iraqi nationalism and embracing the Islamist, anti-American slogans of Osama bin Laden's al Qaida network.
Many ordinary Iraqis who say they hated Saddam have denounced the U.S. occupation and called on the Americans to go home. They say U.S. forces have failed to restore law and order and have assaulted Iraqis during house-to-house searches.
Amnesty International said in a report on Wednesday that Iraqis detained by U.S. troops had complained of torture and degrading treatment. There were also reports of troops shooting detainees, the London-based human rights watchdog said.
Odai and Qusai were not noticeably close in life, but they went down fighting side by side in the violent tradition of their clan. Barricading themselves into the villa, they resisted U.S. troops for several hours.
Two other bodies removed from the villa were a grandson of Saddam and an aide of Odai, a U.S. official said.
The deaths of Odai and Qusai will be a boost to Bush and his closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who are facing pressure over the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction -- the main justification they gave for going to war against Iraq in the face of international opposition.
Black by Nature, Proud by Choice.
I agree with you Noah.
(I know he gone lub dat one)
