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U.S. vows to finish job in IraqHelicopter crash kills 16 soldiers headed for leave
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. officials, responding to the deadliest day for U.S. troops in Iraq since President Bush declared the end of major combat on May 1, are vowing to finish the job and beat back insurgents. The high cost of that effort was made clear Sunday as 16 soldiers died when a U.S. Army transport helicopter went down west of Baghdad. Twenty soldiers were injured. Col. William Darley, a U.S. military spokesman, said witnesses reported seeing missile trails when the twin-engine CH-47 Chinook went down but that the official cause had not been determined. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, told CNN's "Late Edition" that U.S. troops are seeing a more advanced use of makeshift bombs as "stand-off" weapons, allowing resisters to strike American forces at a distance. (Full story) He said that if Sunday's helicopter crash turned out to be a shoot-down, it would be a new development. The soldiers aboard the chopper were on their way to rest and recuperation leave in the United States and in Qatar, Pentagon sources said. Elsewhere Sunday, a makeshift bomb killed a soldier in a vehicle on a road to Baghdad, and a similar device killed two civilian contractors driving in a convoy in Fallujah, coalition sources said. The military death toll Sunday was second only to March 23, the day 29 American troops died in combat in and around the southern city of Nasiriya -- 11 Army soldiers in the ambush of a convoy of the 507th Maintenance Company and 18 U.S. Marines in a battle on the outskirts of town. In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the people resisting the U.S.-led occupation and the establishment of a new government in Iraq are "going to be beaten eventually." "In a long, hard war, we're going to have tragic days, as this is," Rumsfeld told ABC's "This Week." "But they're necessary. They're part of a war that's difficult and complicated." Rumsfeld said portable surface-to-air missiles "are widely available and do have the ability to shoot down a helicopter, and from time to time, this happens." The White House said it mourned the deaths of the 17 soldiers and two civilians but that American resolve was unshakable. "We will prevail in the critical front on the war on terror, because the stakes are too high to do anything less," a White House statement said. "September 11 taught us that we must confront terrorists and outlaw regimes with weapons of mass murder before it's too late." Injured soldiers arrive in GermanySunday's attacks came as coalition forces were on alert for a threatened "day of resistance" by anti-coalition guerrillas following a warning from the U.S. Consulate Office in Baghdad. The helicopter was flying from Fallujah to Baghdad when it went down about 9 a.m. (1 a.m. EST) near Amiryah, according to the U.S. Central Command. It was assigned to the 12th Aviation Brigade, which is supporting a task force led by the 82nd Airborne Division. The troops were from units based at Fort Carson, Colorado, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and Fort Hood, Texas, the sources said, but their names and outfits were withheld pending notification of relatives. The military recently expanded its R&R program, bringing nearly 500 troops a day back to the United States for two-week leaves. Some of the soldiers injured in the crash arrived early Monday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Anti-U.S. chants at attack siteThe two American civilians killed Sunday in Fallujah worked for EOD Technologies Inc., a Knoxville, Tennessee, company hired by the Army Corps of Engineers to destroy captured Iraqi ammunition stockpiles, the Coalition Provisional Authority said. A third civilian was wounded. After the attack, Fallujah residents flocked to the site and chanted anti-U.S. slogans. Fallujah has been a hotbed of resistance to U.S. troops. U.S. troops clashed Sunday with Iraqis in the Abu Ghraib market west of Baghdad. According to The Associated Press, local Iraqis said U.S. troops arrived at the market in the morning and ordered people to disperse. A grenade was tossed at the Americans, who then began firing, witnesses told the AP. It was the same area where 14 Iraqis were killed Friday in fighting with U.S. troops. The 17 military deaths Sunday brought to 139 the number of U.S. combat fatalities since May 1, according to the U.S. military. There is no reliable source for Iraqi civilian or combatant casualty figures, either during the period of major combat or after May 1. The Associated Press reported an estimated 3,240 civilian Iraqi deaths between March 20 and April 20, but the AP reported that the figure was based on records of only half of Iraq's hospitals and the actual number was thought to be significantly higher. Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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