Three Marines honored in Aldan

[thedrifter]

Three Marines honored in Aldan

ALDAN -- Three Marines who recently returned from service in Iraq were honored by council at this month’s meeting. All sergeants, attached to the Marine Reserve unit in Folsom, they are lifelong Aldan resident James Toland, Jr., Matthew Crawford, an Upper Darby transplant, and Timothy Kilgore, who recently relocated to Aldan from Uniontown.


Councilwoman Frances Rayer introduced each Marine with some personal history and a list of their service accomplishments. The three Marines were showered with praise, thanks and tokens of appreciation, including a plaque and miniature town clock presented by Council President Joseph McCollian and Mayor Jack Edmundson; a resolution from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives given by Rep. Nick Micozzie; and a citation from the state Senate, read by Councilman John McBlain on behalf of Sen. Ted Erickson.


Ed Cashman, legislative aide for Rep. Curt Weldon, R-7, of Thornbury, presented a personal letter to each, as well as a flag flown over the United States Capitol in their honor. Cashman remarked the significance of the flag as a symbol for their service and sacrifice.

As a 1992 graduate of Penn Wood High School, Toland also received a proclamation from the William Penn School District. The borough plans to dedicate a commemorative brick in its new park as soon as that project begins.



©The Daily Times 2004


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines accuse insurgents of using Ramadi hospital to attack troops

BAGHDAD, Iraq The military says insurgents in the Iraqi city of Ramadi have used a hospital to ambush U-S soldiers.

However, officials for both the Ramadi General Hospital and Medical College rejected the claims.

The military says insurgents turned off all of the lights in and around the hospital as the soldiers approached.

It says the militants than fired rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire from both sides of the road at the soldiers as soon as the lights of the hospital were turned back on.

It says no U-S soldiers were killed or hurt but and Iraqi civilian died in the attack.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Bush getting physical; visiting wounded sailors, marines

WHITE HOUSE President Bush gets the fourth physical of his presidency today, showing every sign doctors will again find him in excellent health.

After the exam at Bethesda Naval Medical Center in suburban Maryland, the president will pay a holiday visit to wounded sailors and marines being treated there.

Bush normally has his annual check-up in August. But aides say his busy campaign season schedule forced a delay.

Press Secretary Scott McClellan says he expects the battery of tests being run today will show the 58-year-old chief executive to be in "great physical shape."

Bush, an exercise fanatic, passed his previous exams with flying colors. However, in the past two years, knee damage has forced him to stop running and take up biking instead.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines in heart of war still must improvise armor

Hal Bernton, Seattle Times staff reporter

Just before the November attack on Fallujah, Lance Cpl. Garrett Ware spent long hours trying to piece together a patchwork of armor to fortify his Marine Humvee. He tied ceramic plates along the sides of the vehicle and slapped sandbags and plywood atop the cab.



Despite his labor, Ware said, the result was far from perfect.


"It was pretty jury-rigged, and sometimes stuff would be falling off," said Ware, a Marine from Kirkland. "At times, you didn't have protection where it was really important — your arms and neck. ... If we could get something better, we would take it in a heartbeat."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines invade Brawley for training maneuvers

The Marines invaded Brawley today. But don't worry - it was only for training maneuvers.

They're training in Brawley because the terrain closely resembles many of the small towns that troops are moving through in Iraq. Brawley is located south of the Salton Sea.

In today's, exercise Brawley was a "friendly" town with potential insurgent threats. They also escorted a white van of Marines pretending to be foreign dignitaries.

There were no blanks or live ammo, but a lot of surprised faces from employees who suddenly saw dozens of armed Marines crouching on the streets outside their offices

These particular troops came from North Carolina, and are the next ones in the rotation to head to Iraq.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines Welcome Families



MOUNDSVILLE - A pre-deployment family day will be held at 10 a.m. Sunday for the soldiers of the Moundsville-based Company K, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines.

According to 1st Sgt. Scott Seese, the event will be held at the National Guard Armory in Moundsville.
The Marines were activated in November in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Their deployment is expected in January.

Although members of Company K currently are undergoing an intense drill period that began after members received their mobilization orders, the soldiers continue their efforts to help needy children through their Toys for Tots campaign.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

1st FSSG Marines provide supplies to those on frontlines <br />
Submitted by: 1st Force Service Support Group <br />
Story Identification #: 200412111387 <br />
Story by Sgt. Enrique S. Diaz <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
CAMP TAQADDUM,...

[thedrifter]

Gala Stars Pay Tribute to Wounded Troops in Song, Art
By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service

ORLANDO, Fla., Dec. 10, 2004 – Disabled veterans and their families gathered here for the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes: 1st Annual Road to Recovery Tribute and Conference were treated to a night of entertainment Dec. 9 at an event dubbed the "Gala Gratitude Tribute to Veterans."

Irish Tenor Ronan Tynan -- himself a world-class disabled athlete -- kicked off the gala with an inspiring performance of "God Bless America" and later performed a selection from the musical "The Man of LaMancha."

James Vandenheuvel said country music wasn't his thing, so he wasn't particularly excited about the rest of the entertainment on the schedule. However, after country music star LeeAnn Womack finished her concert with her hit "I Hope You Dance," Vandenheuvel had a change of heart. "It's pretty damn good," the soldier said.

Womack was a hard act to follow, judging by the thunderous applause as she concluded her performance. Country star Toby Keith, however, stepped up to the plate and hit a home run with the veterans and their families.

And artist Michael Israel didn't disappoint, coming to the stage three separate times and painting a canvas on the spot with great flair in time to music. His technique is unusual, but the results, it was unanimously agreed, were fantastic.

Even after the Gala officially ended, the festivities weren't over. Keith, Tynan and Israel posed for pictures and signed autographs for anyone and everyone who wanted one. The overall impression among the veterans and their families was that the evening was terrific.

"Fantastic," said Sgt. 1st Class Loren Sturm, 1st Battalion, 162nd Infantry, Oregon National Guard. "Words can't express the feelings that we have for these wonderful people who can sit here and give back to these (disabled veterans)."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Humvees No Match for Crude Bombs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Bruce Wallace
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 11, 2004

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq - This is a graveyard for Humvees, the final resting place for the hulking vehicles felled by insurgents' roadside bombs.

In a parking lot, the U.S. military's most common personnel carriers lie flattened with noses down in the mud. Their metal carcasses are barely recognizable. Tires have been splayed to the sides or blown away entirely. Shrapnel has burst holes in unprotected parts of the vehicles, as if they were tinfoil.

The nine mangled Humvees here have been destroyed by what the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

"Now this one here, you can see the IED tore the whole back end off the vehicle. It's just gone," said Sgt. Patrick Parchment of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which operates south of Baghdad.

"The front is sitting cock-eyed. And that's steel," he said, showing a visitor another severed vehicle.

The blasted remains do not inspire optimism about the fate of the Marines who had been riding in them. Sixteen Marines of the 24th have died since arriving here in July; 259 have been wounded. The majority of the casualties were caused by IEDs, as Marines must daily brave a gantlet of roadside bombs on highways and dirt roads that cut through farms.

The Marines and Army have almost 20,000 Humvees in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. But a quarter of the vehicles do not have proper armor.

The problem came into focus this week when a Tennessee National Guardsman told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that troops had to forage for scrap metal to weld to their vehicles for protection. The confrontation, at a U.S. base in Kuwait, triggered an uproar and raised questions about whether the Pentagon was doing enough to provide safety equipment for the 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

The visit to the Humvee cemetery here was before Rumsfeld's meeting with the troops.

Marines here said they were at risk every time they left the base to make supply runs or conduct patrols. Surveying the mangled Humvee frames, they shook their heads as they talked about some of the blasts they had survived.

Humvees fitted with steel plating provide the best protection, the Marines said. But they pointed out that many Humvees on this base were being driven with jury-rigged armor that offered only limited defense against shrapnel.

"For the most part, the armor's doing its job, saving many lives," said Parchment, a 24-year-old from the Bronx, N.Y., whose unit cannibalizes the disabled Humvees for armor and other parts. The extra weight from the armor means the Humvees seldom flip over after they are hit, he said.

But sometimes, finding gaps in the armor, "the shrapnel goes right through the frame," Parchment said.

Nor is armor any guarantee of avoiding the smashed bones and severed limbs that roadside bombs often cause. And it offers little protection against the bigger explosives that have been used against the Americans.

Marines and soldiers continue to die almost daily from IEDs, the Iraq war's contribution to the world's catalog of effective low-tech weapons. But the term "improvised" is misleading because the explosive is typically a factory-produced 155-millimeter artillery shell that stands taller than knee-high.

The shells are usually propped against a post or hidden under roadside mounds of garbage.

The destructive power of shrapnel detonated in the open air has caused record rates of head and neck wounds among U.S. troops, and the rate of limb amputations is double that of previous wars.

On dangerous roads, such as the main highway leading from Baghdad's airport to this base 25 miles south, the military has torn down guardrails that served as hiding spots for the shells.

The short posts that supported those guardrails remain. The IEDs are frequently propped against them and detonated either by cellphone or by a hired triggerman who simply touches two wires together when the target passes. The Marines say the going rate for someone to plant and detonate a roadside bomb is about $200.

Many Marines want the posts taken down and other hiding places bulldozed.

"On an open road, it's usually easier to see, but often you usually don't recognize the trouble until you go by it and then you say, 'Hmm, that looks suspicious,' " said Lance Cpl. Edward Jay Messer, 23, of Mansfield, Ohio, who drives supply trucks.

This unit of 2,200 Marines alone is hit at a rate of two roadside bombs daily, and an average of four are discovered each day. "IED" has become a verb to the Marines: "Some of us have been IED'd five or six times," Messer said.

Many are aimed at the 7-ton supply trucks that ply the highways, as the shrapnel-pocked fleet sitting in the parking lot of the 24th MEU shows. The Marines try to avoid putting anyone in the unprotected back of the trucks, pushing everyone into the armored cabs, where "you're fairly well protected," Parchment said.

Marines continue to be ferried on patrol or into battle in open-air vehicles with little more than thin steel plating welded to the sides and instructions to keep their heads low.

Messer recently drove into the base here with a damaged Humvee in tow.

Partially armored, the disabled vehicle did not look ready for the graveyard. Its frame was unbent; its wheels rolled cleanly.

The only visible damage was a streak of jagged rips along the driver's side where shrapnel had strafed it.

The punctures started just above the front tire and rose toward the driver's seat, slicing between the armored side of the hood and the armored door.

"Look at the dashboard if you want to see what happened," said Messer, with a toss of his head toward the Humvee. The gauges were covered with large drops of dried blood. The Marines did not know whether the driver had survived.

"At the end of the day you just have to trust the hairs on the back of your neck to drive these roads. That, and say your prayers every morning," he said with a wry smile.

"And every afternoon," he continued.

"And every night."

--- Wallace was recently on assignment with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Iraq.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Just Between Us: Keep our troops in our hearts and prayers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Kim Swinford
Marion Daily Republican
Dec. 11, 2004

This is a letter and a poem being sent from a Marine to his Dad. It makes you truly thankful for not only the Marines, but all of our troops.

Hey Dad,

Do me a favor and label this "The Marine" and send it to everybody on your email list. Even leave this letter in it. I want this rolling all over the U.S. I want every home reading it, every eye seeing it, and every heart to feel it. So can you please send this for me? I would but my email time isn't that long and I don't have much time anyway.

You know what Dad? I wondered what it would be like to truly understand what JFK said in His inaugural speech: "When the time comes to lay down my life for my country, I do not cower from this responsibility. I welcome it."

Well, now I know. And I do. Dad, I welcome the opportunity to do what I do. Even though I have left behind a beautiful wife, and I will miss the birth of our first-born child, I would do it 70 times over to fight for the place that God has made for my home.

I love you all and I miss you very much. I wish I could be there when Sandi has our baby, but tell her that I love her, and Lord willing, I will be coming home soon.

Give Mom a great big hug from me and give one to yourself, too.

Aaron

THE MARINE

We all came together,
Both young and old,
To fight for our freedom,
To stand and be bold.

In the midst of all evil,
We stand our ground,
And we protect our country
From all terror around.

Peace and not war,
Is what some people say.
But I'll give my life,
So you can live the American way.

I give you the right
To talk of your peace.
To stand in your groups,
And protest in our streets.

But still I fight on,
I don't complain, I don't whine.
I'm just one of the people
Who is doing your time.

I'm harder than nails,
Stronger than any machine.
I'm the immortal soldier,
I'm a U.S. MARINE!

So stand in my shoes,
And leave from your home.
Fight for the people who hate you,
With the protests they've shown.

Fight for the stranger,
Fight for the young.
So they all may have,
The greatest freedom you've won.

Fight for the sick,
Fight for the poor.
Fight for the cripple,
Who lives next door.

But when your time comes,
Do what I've done.
For if you stand up for freedom,
You'll stand when the fight's done.

By Corporal Aaron M. Gilbert,
U.S. Marine Corps
USS SAIPAN, PERSIAN GULF

I'm moved when I see the television greetings from our troops overseas. Whether we see a familiar face in the clips or not, our hearts and prayers should go out to our brave troops who are so far away from home this Christmas.

- Kim

[thedrifter]

Free to shoot from the hip
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Rutten
The Los Angeles Times
December 11, 2004

When Spc. Thomas Wilson, a scout with the Tennessee National Guard, stood up in Kuwait this week and confronted Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld over the Pentagon's failure to properly equip his unit for their impending service in Iraq, he reaffirmed the indispensable role free speech plays in every American's relationship to their government.

When Wilson's motive subsequently was called into question after it emerged that he had discussed his question beforehand with a Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter embedded with his unit, it was a dramatic display of how speech and the institution of a free press have become intricately intertwined in the American mind. More than that, it was a reminder of how essential the conventions of mainstream journalism are in protecting the integrity of that interrelationship.

Wilson is the 31-year-old veteran who rose during a so-called town hall meeting Rumsfeld held with troops gearing up for combat in Kuwait and asked why his unit and others were being forced to scavenge scrap metal and glass from local landfills in order to prepare their unarmored transport for their coming deployment in Iraq. By the next day, the Defense secretary's answer - fumbling, lame, unconvincing and, as usual, condescending - was Page 1 news across the country. Questions were raised in Congress. President Bush weighed in, acknowledging that the administration was doing everything it could to see that the troops in Iraq were getting the equipment they needed - including the armored transport vehicles critical to protecting them from the roadside bombs that have become one of the Iraqi insurgents' weapons of choice.

In other words, our soldiers and Marines don't have what they need now - an important story with deeply troubling implications.

But within 24 hours, the usual cast of radio talk-show ranters and Internet bloggers had begun a campaign to discredit Spc. Wilson and his question. Their opportunity to do so arose after the Chattanooga Times Free Press' military affairs reporter, Edward Lee Pitts, told colleagues in an e-mail that he had helped Wilson to rehearse his question and had encouraged the soldier running the town hall meeting to call on Wilson.

According to the critics, Rumsfeld had been set up and Pitts was a reporter "with an agenda."

In fact, Pitts was a reporter who forgot to follow a basic rule of responsible journalism: You owe your readers, viewers or listeners not only all the facts as you know them but also as full as possible an account of the context in which they arise. Pitts should have told his paper's readers that he knew of the question in advance.

His own newspaper acknowledged that omission in a story the next day. But neither Pitts' ill-advised withholding nor any subsequent report in any forum contradicted the question's substantive relevance. In fact, over the past weeks, Pitts has written a number of stories about the inadequacies of the Tennessee National Guard's equipment.

Moreover, Friday, the Nashville Tennessean published an interview with Wilson's girlfriend in which she recounted a telephone conversation in which the Guardsman had described "brainstorming" questions he wanted to put to Rumsfeld, if he got the opportunity.

No intent to conceal there, and so much for the dupe and conspiracy theories.

Deeper in many of the same Thursday newspapers that carried the account of Wilson's faceoff with Rumsfeld was another story about reporters and following the rules that make responsible journalism possible.

The New York Times' Judith Miller and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper currently are appealing a federal prosecutor's attempt to have them jailed for contempt for refusing to name confidential sources to a grand jury investigating the leak of CIA agent Valerie Palme's name to columnist Robert Novak.

Miller never wrote a story about the case, but prosecutors are insisting that she tell them who she may have talked to about it. Cooper has answered questions about a source who gave him permission to do so. Now, prosecutors embarked on a classic fishing expedition want to compel him to answer still other questions.

Wednesday, lawyers for both journalists - who are free pending resolution of their appeals - asked three appellate justices to acknowledge that their clients have at least some 1st Amendment protection from being forced to betray those individuals who spoke to them under promise of confidentiality.

Without such promises, the public's right to know how its government conducts itself would go unexercised - usually because knowledge inconveniences the powerful, as it did Rumsfeld this week.

Right-wing supporters of the administration and uncritical apologists for the war in Iraq would have their audiences and readers believe that Spc. Wilson was a dupe or collaborator with a conniving reporter. The evidence suggests something far different - that both men are precisely what they appear to be:

Pitts is a reporter whose passion led him to forget that you have to follow all the rules, even when the story you're reporting involves the lives and safety of people you've come to know and admire.

Wilson hardly seems the type to be anybody's dupe. The blood of the red states hardly flows more crimson than it does in the Tennessee-Georgia highlands that the scout and his people call home. It's a region that has sent generations of its sons to fight America's wars and where plain-spoken eloquence is served up as routinely as grits. Wilson's father, Lyndon, still bears the scars of the wounds he suffered as a Marine in Vietnam. His son enlisted in the guard because he missed the military life he'd enjoyed so much during a previous Air Force enlistment.

Nobody close to him seems to be buying the dupe theory.

Lyndon Wilson, who calls his son Jerry, told the New York Times on Thursday that "Rumsfeld said, 'Any questions?' Well, if you don't really want questions, that's the wrong thing to say to Jerry."

Regina Wilson, Jerry's ex-wife, told the Associated Press that "he's always been like that. I don't think he understands the concept of biting one's tongue. It wouldn't matter if it was Bush himself standing there, he would have dissed him the same."

The willingness of legitimately aggrieved soldiers to "diss" even Cabinet secretaries and presidents is the ultimate guarantor of American democracy. Reporters like Edward Lee Pitts, Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper understand that, without the information to inform themselves, individual Americans' willingness to speak their minds - no matter how courageous - is reduced to a futile exercise.

That's why responsible news organizations have rules to ensure they can go on informing the public as their obligation to the 1st Amendment requires. That's why principled reporters, like Miller and Cooper, are willing to face jail in the service of those rules and in fulfillment of that obligation.

That's why this administration's efforts to force them to choose between betrayal and jail are a disgrace.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

President Bush 'Fit for Duty' After Physical
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The Associated Press
Dec. 11, 2004

President Bush was found in good health and pronounced "fit for duty" by his doctors after his annual physical on Saturday. The checkup was delayed for four months because the 58-year-old president had a hectic travel schedule during the campaign.

"They determined he is in superior health overall for a man his age," White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said.

The White House put out a short letter signed by the 10 doctors who participated in exam and planned to release further details late Saturday about what the team found. Buchan would not comment on any problems discovered during the exam, which last about three hours.

"I have interviewed and examined President George W. Bush and have reviewed his medical record," the doctors' statement said. "Within the scope of my specialty, I find him to be fit for duty and have every reasonable expectation that he will remain fit for duty for the duration of his presidency."

Bush won a second four-year term on Nov. 2. His inauguration is Jan. 20.

Presiding over the medical exam at the National Naval Medical Center outside Washington were White House physician Richard Tubb and Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the president of the Cooper Aerobics Center. Also involved were a radiologist, optometrist, sports physician, hearing specialist, skin specialist and cardiologist.

It was the fourth physical of Bush's presidency. He usually has his annual exam in August. This year, however, Bush found it more convenient to wait and his doctor had no problem with that, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

After the checkup, Bush stayed at the medical facility to visit privately for about two hours with Marines, sailors and one soldier recovering from injuries suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The hospital is treating about 50 military members, most of whom were hurt in Iraq, Lt. Cmdr. Chito Peppler said. Bush saw about 45 of them, including two in the intensive care unit, and was awarding 14 Purple Hearts, Buchan said.

Bush asked if they had everything they needed and expressed appreciation for their sacrifice, Buchan said. For most of the visits, the president was accompanied by Michael W. Smith, the Christian pop singer who is a Bush family friend.

The naval facility has treated more than 1,100 Marines and sailors since the beginning of the two conflicts, Peppler said.

Bush has visited with wounded troops at Bethesda once before. He has made six trips to see injured soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

In his past three annual exams, the president was pronounced extremely fit.

At nearly 6 feet tall, Bush was found in his 2003 physical to weigh 194 pounds, with a 14.5 percent body fat, a healthy resting blood pressure of 110/62 and a resting pulse rate (45 beats per minute) that puts him in the range of a well-trained athlete.

The president's only reported health problems have been minor: a mild high frequency hearing loss that does not affect everyday conversation, an optic condition that has the effect of farsightedness, and a now-healed minor muscle tear in his right calf last summer.

Last winter, with his knees causing him increasing pain after nearly three decades of running, Bush switched to riding a mountain bike for exercise. Those who have biked with him say the president is as aggressive on the trails as he was on the track as a jogger.

The president made headlines in May when he was cut and bruised in a spill off his mountain bike while riding around his Texas ranch.

Bush has had several small skin growths treated as a preventive measure, including lesions around his nose that are common in people with sun damage. He has had four small lesions removed from his cheeks and arm with liquid nitrogen.

The president smokes an occasional cigar. He quit drinking alcohol when he was 40.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Insurgents Try to Derail Election Date

By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents pressed their attack on U.S. troops and Iraq (news - web sites)'s security forces Saturday, killing five Iraqi police officers and wounding 14 American soldiers in a relentless effort to derail next month's elections. A U.S. Marine also was killed in the province containing the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.


However, Iraqi officials maintain that vote preparations are on schedule.


The Marine was killed in action Saturday in the volatile western Anbar province, the military said. The Marine, assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, was killed "while conducting security and stabilization operations" in Anbar, a military statement said.


No further details were immediately available. Anbar contains the battleground cities of Ramadi and Fallujah.


The Marine's identity was not released. As of Saturday, at least 1,287 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.


The 14 Americans were wounded in separate attacks in northern Iraq. One car bombing and ambush wounded eight soldiers, prompting an American warplane to drop a 500-pound bomb on an insurgent position in Mosul.


"The commanders on the ground felt the attack was heavy enough to call in close air support," military spokeswoman Capt. Angela Bowman said.


Violence continues to grip the Sunni-dominated areas in central Iraq despite last month's U.S.-led assault on the main insurgent stronghold of Fallujah and on an area south of Baghdad. That attack was launched to try to curb the insurgency so parliamentary elections could be held nationwide Jan. 30.


The latest attacks appear to be part of a sweeping intimidation campaign aimed at foiling those elections, in part by killing Iraqis who cooperate with the United States, making them collaborators in the eyes of insurgents.


Police Col. Najeeb al-Joubouri was gunned down on his way to work on a road outside Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad.


Two more police commanders were shot and killed in Baghdad's southwestern Saidiyah neighborhood in an early-morning ambush. A senior Interior Ministry official identified the victims as Brig. Gen. Razzaq Karim Mahmood and Col. Karim Farhan.


Gunmen ambushed a police patrol in Baghdad's northern suburb of Azamiyah late Friday, killing a captain and a constable and wounding two others, police Lt. Mohammed al-Obeidi said.


The guerrillas regard the elections as an effort to legitimize a puppet government that will serve U.S. interests.


Iraq's government says the vote will go ahead as scheduled, and preparations continued Saturday, with election officials saying candidates from 70 political parties and coalitions have filed so far. The filing deadline is Dec. 15.


In other violence, gunmen shot and killed a Shiite cleric, Salim al-Yaqoubi, near his home in Baghdad, police said.


A second Shiite cleric, Sheik Ammar al-Joubouri, was slain Friday near Mahmoudiya, about 25 miles south of Baghdad, while driving to the capital. Al-Joubouri once headed a religious court of followers of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the southern holy city of Najaf.


In northern Iraq, a suspected suicide car bomber wounded two U.S. soldiers in Beiji, while two more were wounded in a car bomb blast near Kirkuk, about 60 miles to the north.





Two more U.S. soldiers were wounded by a roadside bomb outside Hawija, near Kirkuk.

A military spokesman said Saturday that U.S. commanders welcomed news that the Pentagon (news - web sites) intended to speed up production of armored Humvees.

The issue of whether the military was providing enough protection for its troops received new attention this week after an Iraq-bound National Guardsman questioned Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in neighboring Kuwait on why he and his comrades must comb through scrap piles for metal to protect their vehicles.

"Commanders are looking for any opportunity to increase force protection for the sake of their troops," said Maj. Neal O'Brien, spokesman for the Tikrit-based 1st Infantry Division. "Uparmor or add-on armor will always be one of those force protection assets they want more of."


Ellie