The cost of war

What is so frustrating about the Iraq war is not only the money, but the useless killings of humans. That only escalates more hate and killings.

Bush is a dummy masquerading as a "strong" president. He's made our country weaker in both treasury and foreign relations - not only with our former allies, but with many more people around the world that used to love Americans.

Bush changed all that for all time. We now have more terrorism around the world, and the increased hatreds from all those killings can only increase with time.

More killings in Iraq.

May 16, 2006
Attack at Baghdad Parking Garage Kills at Least 19
By DEXTER FILKINS

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 16 ?- Nineteen people died in a parking garage in Baghdad today, killed by gunmen who shot some of the victims and then detonated a bomb in a car as rescuers arrived.

An increasing number of incidents lately have involved two-staged attacks in which an initial explosion or drive-by shooting creates a scene that draws in victims of separate blast.

In today's attack, five security guards in a garage in the Al-Shaab neighborhood were killed by gunmen, and 14 people who gathered to assist the wounded died when a bomb placed in a car by the gunmen exploded, according to the Interior Ministry. Another 33 were wounded.

Two eyewitnesses, who said they belonged to the Mahdi Army militia, said that four of the slain guards were militia members.

The attack comes a day after the American military reported that it had killed 25 insurgents in airstrikes and ground attacks on Sunday in Yusefiya, a turbulent city south of Baghdad that has attracted growing attention from American commanders.

Two American airmen died when their helicopter was shot down during the battle, the military said.

Two marines were also killed Sunday by "enemy action" in Anbar Province, the violent, largely Sunni province west of Baghdad, the military said.

The description of the fighting in Yusefiya offered by the military, with the high death tolls and the shooting down of a helicopter, suggested that the battle had been fierce.

In a statement, the military said American soldiers on the ground in Yusefiya attacked a suspected insurgent safe house and killed two in people inside. The Americans entered the house, detained four suspects and treated three injured civilians, the statement said. As the Americans were evacuating three women by helicopter to a military hospital, the aircraft came under fire from the ground, the statement said.

American aircraft responded to the shooting with several airstrikes, killing approximately 20 insurgents, the statement said.

During the fighting, the Americans said they shot and killed three men who tried to ram American positions with a truck. One of the men, the Americans said, detonated a suicide vest after he was shot but injured no one. The man died.

The airstrikes ignited several secondary explosions from a car, suggesting that weapons and ammunition were stored inside, the military said.

The military operation on Sunday was one of several recently around Yusefiya, in a string of towns south of Baghdad where insurgent activity has been especially intense. Local Iraqis have told reporters that Yusefiya and the surrounding area, including Arab Al Jabour, are controlled by Al Qaeda.

Saddam Hussein moved large numbers of his Sunni supporters to Yusefiya and nearby towns after a Shiite uprising in 1991. The Sunnis in the area have been among the staunchest opponents of the American presence in Iraq.

Earlier this month, intelligence and military officials in Washington said that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist suspected of directing dozens of suicide bombings, had been tracked to Yusefiya, and that his men had downed an Apache helicopter near there in April.

During a raid on a suspected safe house in the town on April 16, soldiers killed five suspected insurgents and captured five more. The officials said they were later told by Iraqis captured in that raid that Mr. Zarqawi had been only blocks away. A copy of a videotape of Mr. Zarqawi, portions of which were posted on the Internet, was found in the same area.

Still, whatever the nature of the fighting that took place Sunday, the incident was publicly portrayed by a group of prominent Sunni clerics as a "barbaric massacre" of civilians. The group, the Association of Muslim Scholars, said in a statement that American soldiers had jumped out of helicopters in Yusefiya and chased down the 25 Iraqis, all civilians, and killed them.

"The forces conducted an air drop from seven helicopters; the soldiers chased the people as they ran away, killed them and arrested two others," the statement said.

The clerics charged that, far from taking the women for medical treatment, the Americans had taken the women as prisoners.

Neither the American account, nor that of the clerics in Baghdad, could be verified independently.

On Monday, on a road near Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, insurgents stopped a bus carrying 10 secondary school teachers and separated them by Muslim sect. Five Sunni teachers were allowed to go free, while the five Shiites were each shot in the head and killed.

In the Jamilya neighborhood of Baghdad, men wearing police uniforms pulled a Sunni man and four of his sons from his house and took them away. Several of them were found shot dead in a garbage dump nearby; one of the sons survived, the police said.

Mona Mahmood contributed reporting for this article.

Who was that funny little man on the aircraft carrier who spoke of the end of hostilities?