US President George W. Bush said yesterday the greatest threat to US troops -- and to the future of a peaceful Iraq -- are remote-controlled, homemade bombs that terrorists hide in cars or set along roads.
In his weekly radio address, Bush said terrorists in Iraq know they cannot defeat the US military so they have resorted to using lethal improvised explosive devices, which are the leading killer of US troops in Iraq.
The president was receiving a briefing yesterday about the devices from Montgomery Meigs, a retired general who is heading a Pentagon organization with a multibillion-dollar budget to find ways to counter the threat.
"We're harnessing every available resource, the ingenuity of our best scientists and engineers, and the determination of our military to defeat this threat -- and we're not going to rest until this danger to our troops has been removed," Bush said in his broadcast.
Troops are receiving more extensive training on how to spot the bombs, which sometimes are buried or hidden inside animal carcasses. But Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who also will be at the briefing, said on Friday there are no new technological breakthroughs to report to the president at this time.
Bush's radio broadcast comes ahead of his speech tomorrow on Iraq, the first in a series of talks he will give to mark the three-year anniversary of the US-led invasion. In the speech, Bush will discuss US strategy in defeating terrorists and training Iraqi security forces.
He said Iraqi security forces performed well after the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite mosque, which led to the killing of 500 people and pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.
"Immediately after the attack, Iraq's leaders came together and acted to restore calm and end the violence," Bush said.
"They deployed Iraqi security forces to Baghdad and other areas threatened by violence. These forces moved rapidly and effectively to protect religious sites, enforce a curfew and re-establish civil order where necessary," he said.
Bush said the goal is to have Iraqis control more territory than US-led coalition forces by the end of the year. As Iraqis assume responsibility over more territory, coalition forces will be able to concentrate on hunting down top terrorists, he said.
Bush advisers say the upcoming speeches -- three this month and possibly more next month -- will be similar in tone to a series of talks the president made back in December to help turn public opinion on the war in his favor.
With nearly daily reports of car bombings, kidnappings and executions, Bush said he understands why many Americans wonder whether the mission was worth it.
According to the latest AP-Ipsos poll 77 percent say they think a civil war is likely in Iraq. Seventy percent of Republicans and 90 percent of Democrats felt that way.
People are evenly split on whether they think a stable, democratic government will be formed in Iraq, according to the poll taken earlier this month.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS