A rchive Date
[ 22-12-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2004/12/22/793228-sun.html
At least 22 killed in Iraq attack
NEW U.S. DINING HALL NOT READY
By SLOBODAN LEKIC, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wed, December 22, 2004
A 122MM rocket slammed into a mess tent yesterday at a U.S. military base near the northern Iraqi city Mosul, ripping through the ceiling and spraying shrapnel as soldiers sat down to lunch. Officials said 22 people were killed in one of the most devastating attacks against Americans in Iraq since the start of the war.
The dead included 20 Americans -- 15 of them troops and five civilian contractors. Two Iraqi soldiers also were killed. Sixty-six people were wounded, including 42 U.S. troops, Capt. Brian Lucas, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said early today.
A radical Sunni Muslim group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility for the attack -- the latest in a week of deadly strikes across Iraq that highlighted the unwavering power of the insurgents in the run-up to the Jan. 30 Iraqi national elections.
Lt.-Col. Paul Hastings, a spokesman for Task Force Olympia, acknowledged the tent's vulnerability and told CNN the military is building a concrete dining facility at the base that was supposed to have been ready for Christmas.
"There is a level of vulnerability when you go in there and you don't feel like there's a ... hard roof over your head," Hastings told CNN.
U.S. President George W. Bush said the explosion should not derail the elections and he hoped relatives of those killed know their loved ones died in "a vital mission for peace."
"I'm confident democracy will prevail in Iraq," he said.
The attack at Forward Operating Base Marez came hours after British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a surprise visit to Baghdad and spoke of a "battle between democracy and terror."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan, responding to a question about how Iraqis will be able to safely go to some 9,000 polling places if U.S. troops can't secure their own bases, said there is "security and peace" in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces.
Earlier, Brig.-Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia, said, "It is indeed a very, very sad day."
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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