Seven US soldiers were killed by roadside bombs in Iraq over the weekend, as top US officials sought to justify the campaign to topple former dictator Saddam Hussein despite having found no weapons of mass destruction.
As the first anniversary of the US-led war loomed, US leaders insisted Sunday that the failure to find Saddam's alleged banned weapons does not lessen the case for war.
"I do believe it was the right thing to do, and I'm glad it's done," said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one of administration hawks behind the invasion on March 20 last year.
Pressed about the lack of chemical and biological weapons used to justify the war, Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "I don't think this takes away from the merit of the case."
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice told NBC that Saddam headed "the most dangerous regime in the world's most dangerous region."
Powell and Rumsfeld said the US still aims to hand over power to a transitional Iraqi government on June 30. With security in the country still not under control, they acknowledged, however, many questions about the makeup of the new Iraqi government and the US role after.
Iraq and foreign policy are likely to become a focus of the campaign for the Nov. 2 US presidential election.
In Iraq, a bomb exploded late Saturday killing three troops from the 1st Armored Division as they patrolled an area in southeast Baghdad, a senior military official said.
A fourth soldier who was wounded died at a combat hospital Sunday, the Pentagon said.
Hours later, west of the city, a newly arrived US National Guard soldier was killed when the convoy he was travelling in was hit by a separate bomb attack.
Early Saturday, two US soldiers died and three were wounded in an attack on an army convoy in the center of the northern city of Tikrit.
The weekend deaths in Iraq raises to 274 the number of US soldiers killed in action since US President George W. Bush declared major hostilities over on May 1.
Homemade and roadside bombs have become the biggest killers of US military personnel in Iraq.
In Spain, the Socialist Party won Sunday's elections after an eight-year absence from power, amid massive voter turnout following Thursday's railway bombings that killed 200 and wounded 1,500.
There was widespread speculation that a claim of responsibility for the bombings by the Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda resulted in a last-minute swing against the conservative party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.
The claim, which said the bombings were revenge for Spanish support of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, appeared to have had a dramatic impact in a country where polls showed 90 percent of the people opposed Aznar's policy.
Back in the US, some 600 protesters, many of them relatives of US soldiers killed in Iraq or currently on duty in the region, marched against the war Sunday outside Dover Air Force Base in the northeastern state of Delaware.
One marcher, Al McLaine, said he had 10 relatives in the military in Iraq -- including his son, an army captain, who he said is "behind us 100 percent."
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not