Insurgents shot down a U.S. Chinook helicopter in central Iraq on Sunday as it carried troops headed for R&R, killing 15 soldiers and wounding 21 in the deadliest single strike against American troops since the start of war.
*sigh*

source

Insurgents shot down a U.S. Chinook helicopter in central Iraq on Sunday as it carried troops headed for R&R, killing 15 soldiers and wounding 21 in the deadliest single strike against American troops since the start of war.
Kawaii said:Sad. I was against this war in the first place. I am truly sorry that people have to die like this.
Squiggy said:We have created a volatile situation which must now be dealt with and LIVES will be lost. In the end, The Iraqi people will be no more thankful than the Kuwaiti people are.....but Americans will die for that end because the President asks them to.His future will improve on the spilling of their blood. He will leave office one day and get an offer much like Cheney did....Tons of money and a great parachute.... And American parents will be told their sons died honorably.....
WMDs????????Twas better to be raped & mutilated?
chcr said:WMDs????????
During the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq developed the ability to produce, store, and use chemical weapons. These chemical weapons included H-series blister and G-series nerve agents. Iraq built these agents into various offensive munitions including rockets, artillery shells, aerial bombs, and warheads on the Al Hussein Scud missile variant. During the Iran-Iraq war, Iraqi fighter-attack aircraft dropped mustard-filled and tabun-filled 250 kilogram bombs and mustard-filled 500 kilogram bombs on Iranian targets. Other reports indicate that Iraq may have also installed spray tanks on an unknown number of helicopters or dropped 55-gallon drums filled with unknown agents (probably mustard) from low altitudes.
Barbarous acts perpetrated on Iraqi political prisoners and women persist under Saddam Hussein's regime in spite of a decade of international economic sanctions engineered by the west to topple him, according to restricted Foreign Office documents obtained by the Guardian.
Among many incidents, the documents say that:
More than 50 mental health patients were executed in place of prisoners with the means to bribe their way out.
Eight prisoners were executed in October for defacing murals of Saddam Hussein.
Thirty prostitutes were beheaded in a "clean-up" during the last month and their heads were left on the doorsteps of their homes.
A man's tongue was cut off in September under a new decree making slander of President Saddam an amputation crime.
Mass graves are being found every week. Saddam and his Caligula-like sons, Uday and Qusay, and their regime committed horrifying atrocities, and did not shrink from recording them audiovisually. Hundreds of thousands vanished during the 30-year Saddam Hussein regime.
Almost as shocking as the attack was the gleeful response of the Iraqi villagers who witnessed the scene of carnage in the fields of crops and date palms close to the tranquil Euphrates.
Iyad Issawi, an Iraqi blacksmith, told how their initial alarm turned to delight as they realized dozens of Americans had been killed or injured.
"We were happy. The people were clapping with joy and praising those who carried out this attack," he said.
Hadi Shehan, a local farmer, said the Americans would lose many more soldiers if they stayed in Iraq.
"I hope that they do. The Americans are the enemy for all nations. They want to kill innocents and occupy our land," Shehan said.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi complained about the fact that the Iraq assistance would be in the form of grants. She added, "Why should our children pay the bill down the line if the oil wells are going to be gushing and other countries are going to get their loans repaid?"
Squiggy said:The Bush administration and the republicans have said lots of things that seem to be honorable