*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

Wolfowitz on Iraq

4/23/04 - WOLFOWITZ ON IRAQ
The following is an editorial reflecting the views of the United States government:


U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz says the current violence in Iraq is the work of "enemies of democracy" who are trying to disrupt the transition to sovereignty and derail the Iraqis' progress toward self-government. The U.S., he says, must "in this time of stress show that our commitment to their freedom is rock solid."
Such a commitment will have consequences beyond Iraq. As Mr. Wolfowitz says, it will “set a powerful example for the Iranian people who are already demanding a better government from their leaders. If they see right next door -- here are Shia Muslim Arabs who are living free. . .they're going to demand it themselves.”

http://www.voanews.com/Editorials/a...EF44179FF5A&title=4/23/04 - WOLFOWITZ ON IRAQ

 

[Barking_Mad]

Four U.S. soldiers killed, seven injured in rocket attack

BAGHDAD (AP) — Four U.S. soldiers were killed and seven wounded before dawn Saturday when two rockets slammed into a U.S. base north of Baghdad, U.S. military officials said. Two 57-mm rockets hit the base in Taji at 5:30 a.m., said Air Force Lt. Col. Sam Hudspath. Taji is a former Iraqi air force base 12 miles north of Baghdad that is now used by the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-24-rocket-attack_x.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

At Least 9 Iraqis Killed in Baghdad Market Attack

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least nine Iraqi were killed and 30 wounded in Baghdad on Saturday when rockets or mortar bombs slammed into a busy market in a Shi'ite suburb, witnesses and hospital sources said. Witnesses said at least two projectiles hit the chicken market in the Ourfalli neighborhood of Sadr City. Abdul-Jabbar al-Zubeidi, director of a nearby hospital, said several of the wounded were in critical condition. It was not immediately clear who had fired the weapons.

Meanwhile a car bomb exploded near the main US base in the northern city of Tikrit, killing at least three people. A suicide bomber appeared to be driving the car when it exploded outside the outer wall of the base, said Master Sgt. Robert Powell of the 1st Infantry Division. The car detonated near a row of shops outside the base, Powell said.

Ambulances and fire trucks rushed to the scene, he added. Witnesses reported seeing wreckage of vehicles with at least three bodies. The blast targeted a convoy of Iraqi officials heading to the Mayor office in Tikrit, they said.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4928417

 

[Barking_Mad]

US Injured for this month

The US Military now does a injury count every Friday. For April there have been a total of 876 US injured, which equates to an average of 45 injured soldiers every day. As a comparison, March's daily average for injuries was just over 10 a day.

Out of the 876 injured 316 have returned to duty and 558 have had to be taken out of action.

http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx

There's also an article on the umbers here: http://www.theday.com/eng/web/newstand/re.aspx?reIDx=E5439B6B-2BE4-4016-ABDA-F6CD53EED083

 

[Barking_Mad]

Digging For Corpses

Guns were quiet in the Sunni stronghold of Falluja, but a U.S. officer said Marines were ready to resume an offensive against insurgents in the city of 300,000.

About 20 civilian volunteers shifted rubble with picks and shovels to extract bodies from houses flattened in fierce fighting in Falluja earlier this month. Witnesses said three bodies had been recovered from the city's battered Golan district. Seven were found on Thursday.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20040423_90.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bush raps coffin photos

WASHINGTON - A White House spokesman, Trent Duffy, said Friday that President Bush had seen photographs of the coffins of service members killed in Iraq arriving at Dover Air Force Base that were made public Thursday and agreed with the Pentagon that releasing the photos was wrong.

"We must pay attention to the privacy and to the sensitivity of the families of the fallen," Duffy said. "And that's what the policy is based on and that has to be the utmost concern."

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/8510378.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Danish Defense Minister Resigns Over Failure To Find WMDs In Iraq

Copenhagen, Denmark — The Danish defense minister resigned Friday as parliament members questioned whether the military exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein to justify the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Svend Aage Jensby stepped down just days after the prime minister reiterated that Denmark would not pull its troops out of Iraq despite continuing violence and a failure to find Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction. Jensby said he was tired of a “smear campaign” by opponents of the Iraq war.

http://www.theday.com/eng/web/newstand/re.aspx?reIDx=697A715C-19E1-4219-9B6B-C763E2258DC4

 

[Barking_Mad]

US to lose more occupation support

Faced with an eroding occupation force, the United States has said it hopes several nations will keep troops in Iraq past their July deadline for withdrawal. But Norway rejected the appeal on Saturday, indicating its 180 troops would leave after an American-backed interim Iraqi government takes power on 30 June.

Foreign Minister Jan Petersen said: "We must follow our original plan, of a commitment until the summer." In the face of worsening violence, three countries - Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic - have announced they are pulling out their troops, totalling roughly 2000. And occupation strength could crumble further because several nations have committed only to staying until the US occupiers transfer power to a selected Iraqi government.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B99D0323-E43D-47B4-A4E5-06E7FEF0D91B.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

US admits it will still control Iraq after transfer

The US has made clear that the transfer of sovereignty to a provisional Iraqi government on 30 June will be a limited affair, and that ultimate authority will reside at a gigantic new US embassy in Baghdad and with the military occupation force.

In sometimes heated hearings on Capitol Hill this week, senior Bush administration officials admitted they did not know who would be in the new government, precisely what powers it would exercise, nor the exact shape of the new Security Council resolution that Washington is seeking at the United Nations.

Marc Grossman, Under-Secretary of State for political affairs, said the government would put "a very important Iraqi face" on many aspects of the country's life. But the US military, not the Iraqi security forces, would be in charge of all security matters.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=514687

 

[Barking_Mad]

A good read. It would seem the US not only closed down Fallujah's hospital, but that they also put a sniper on the roof.

Uneasy truce in the city of ghosts

By the time Menem Latif Hussain returned to his house early in the afternoon on the third day of the battle for Falluja there was little he could do. In the driveway by the front gate lay the body of his son Wisam, 16. The boy had suffered one injury, caused by a blow so powerful that the back of his skull had been torn away. It killed him instantly. "He had been standing by the gate looking out. There had been bombing nearby. I don't know whether it was a shell or a sniper that hit him," said Mr Hussain. "I gave my thanks to God, for he was a martyr. And then we buried him in the cemetery."

When they returned to the house later that afternoon they found Wisam's cousin Thair Ahmed, 18, was also missing. He had left that morning to cross town to check on his fiancee's family. Hours later the family retrieved the young man's body from where it lay in the street. He had been hit once, by a sniper's bullet through the heart, and he too died where he fell. By then it was too dangerous to reach the cemetery.

"We buried him in a patch of dirt ground. There was no choice. Later we will take out his body and bury him properly," said Mr Hussain, 41.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1202163,00.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bomb kills 14 Iraqis in bus

Sat 24 April, 2004 15:39

HASWA, Iraq (Reuters) - A roadside bomb has killed 14 Iraqis travelling by bus to Baghdad and 12 others have been wounded, a doctor at a nearby hospital says. Abbas Wissan al-Shamari, a doctor at the hospital in the town of Iskandariya, 31 miles south of Baghdad, said the bus was taking people to the capital but he had no immediate further details.

Witnesses said the bus was driving just ahead of a convoy of six U.S. military vehicles when the roadside bomb, a favourite guerrilla weapon against the occupying forces, exploded. Local people rushed to the scene from a nearby village to help the injured and dead to hospital, the witnesses said. They said U.S. troops sealed off the area.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=498815&section=news

Also this

CAMP FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Marines killed around 30 Iraqi insurgents overnight in a firefight near the flashpoint town of Falluja, Colonel John Coleman said on Saturday.
Marines spotted a small group of armed men, one with a mortar, and shot at them near a small village on the banks of the Euphrates, he said at the U.S. base of Camp Falluja, just outside the town.

The insurgents were joined by about 30 others and the Marines called in air support, Coleman, the chief of staff of the Marine Expeditionary Force, told reporters.

He said all the insurgents were killed in the action, but gave no other details.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4929495&section=news

 

[Barking_Mad]

ITN News reporting that a boat has struck the oil terminal in Basra, possibly two in a 'suspected suicide attack'.

Update: The rig is apparently an off shore oil rig and the BBC are saying there has been an explosion.

From Reuters:

Boat attacks Iraq's main oil terminal
Sat 24 April, 2004 18:55

BASRA (Reuters) - At least one boat has attacked Iraq's main oil terminal offshore in the Gulf, a British military spokesman says.

Asked about an unconfirmed report that two boats exploded at the Basra terminal in suicide attacks, Major Ian Clooey told Reuters on Saturday: "We are just getting reports that there has been an incident at the Basra offshore terminal. There are no firm details yet but we know of at least one vessel involved."

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=498879&section=news

Another update

Boat explodes near Basra oil terminal
Sat 24 April, 2004 19:41

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - A boat has exploded alongside a ship tied up at Basra's offshore oil terminal, but there are no immediate reports of damage, a British military spokesman says.

Major Ian Clooey told Reuters on Saturday a second boat was intercepted by a U.S.-led coalition vessel as it approached the exclusion zone around Iraq's main oil terminal and there was an explosion soon after it was boarded.

Clooey said he had not received reports of casualties in the second explosion.

Iraqi authorities shut down the Basra offshore oil terminal after the attack, officials at the Southern Oil Company said.

At least two boats commanded by suicide attackers targeted the vital terminal, through which most of Iraqi oil exports flow, the officials said, adding that the extent of damage to the terminal was not immediately known.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=498891&section=news

Sky are now reporting a British commander as saying that 3 boats were involved in the attack, no word on damage, but one coalition boat was sent to board one of them, and on doing so it blew up.

Casualties likely.

 

[mears]

Bomb kills 14 Iraqis in bus



Also this

Boy, the guerillas really hold the moral high ground. Killing innocent civilians so they will turn on coalition authorities for lack of security.

I'm sure they have grand plans for the people of Iraq

 

[Barking_Mad]

2 U.S. Sailors Killed in Iraq Boat Attack

By BASSEM MROUE Associated Press Writer

Suicide attackers detonated explosive-laden boats near oil facilities in the Persian Gulf on Saturday, killing two U.S. Navy sailors in a new tactic against Iraq's vital oil industry. Elsewhere, violence across Iraq killed at least 33 Iraqis and four American soldiers. It was the first such maritime attack against oil facilities since U.S. troops invaded Iraqi more than a year ago.

http://www.620ktar.com/news/article.aspx?id=360596

 

[Walter Mitty]

Theres also a prospect that British troops might be sent to more violent areas. A casualty rate of 2 or 3 a day might lead to an eventual British troop pull out.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Theres also a prospect that British troops might be sent to more violent areas. A casualty rate of 2 or 3 a day might lead to an eventual British troop pull out.

I posted these two links from the Soctsman the other day. Definately worth the read and they talk about what you mentioned above. I did post them before but they probably got lost a page or so back.......Oh and I'll say it again, Iraqis with a small tank?!?!?! WTF?

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=461122004
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=460882004

Since February last year a total of 2,228 injured British personnel have been flown home for treatment, a figure equivalent to three battalions. To put the figure in context, the entire Black Watch battle group in Iraq during the war amounted to 1,100 soldiers. About 60,000 British military personnel have served in Iraq during Operation Telic, with the death toll currently standing at 59.

Coalition commanders decided that British troops may have to be used to restore order in Nasiriyah after it became clear that the Italian and South Korean forces were losing control. In one incident, about 80 militia armed with a small tank succeeded in hijacking a train.

Concerns about Nasiriyah began to mount after the arrest of one of Sadr’s key aides and the closure of his newspaper sparked violent protests across Iraq. Coalition commanders decided that British troops may have to be used to restore order in Nasiriyah after it became clear that the Italian and South Korean forces were losing control. In one incident, about 80 militia armed with a small tank succeeded in hijacking a train.

Coalition commanders feared that if Sadr’s militia were allowed to take full control of the town, it would require a full assault on the scale of the US operation against Fallujah. British commanders were told to put together an ad hoc force of about 1,000 men. One officer estimated that the losses in such an operation would be expected to run at about 30 per cent, with fatalities expected to account for one in three of those casualties. But the operation was called off after Mr Berlusconi flew to Nasiriyah on a surprise visit on 10 April.

Privately, some senior officers believe they would no longer be able to control their areas of the country if the Americans attack Sadr in Najaf and spark off widespread unrest in the Shia heartland in the south. One said the success of Britain’s mission in Iraq, and the safety of its troops in the country, hinged on the US handling of events in Najaf....."I know if that happened I would not be able to dominate the ground here any longer," one said. "We would be able to hold our positions, but we would be taking significant casualties."

 

[Barking_Mad]

More dead Iraqi children from US troops fire.......

US troops kill four schoolchildren after bomb attack in Baghdad as Fallujah truce deal extended

Four schoolchildren were killed by US fire in Baghdad on Sunday, shortly after a roadside bomb ripped through a U.S. military vehicle, witnesses said. Eywitnesses told Reuters the children, all aged around 12, were shot dead by U.S. troops who had opened fire randomly after the explosion on Canal Street in eastern Baghdad.

http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=275540&lang=e&dir=news

Rockets kill four in Iraq's north
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Katyusha rockets have hit a hospital and a hotel in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing two hospital and two hotel workers and wounding 11 people, police say.

They said a rocket slammed into the Salam (Peace) Hospital in the town, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, killing two women staff and wounding 10 other people.

Less than an hour later, a second rocket hit Ashour Hotel in the city centre, causing extensive damage and wounding three people. Two of the wounded, both hotel workers, died shortly afterwards in hospital.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040425/325/erxxz.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Robert Kagan and William Krystal from the PNAC web site.

21st April - The mere fact that violence has increased recently in Iraq is not by itself grounds for criticizing the administration's handling of the war. No sensible person believed that the effort to build a democratic Iraq would be without cost and dangers. No reasonable person expected administration officials and military commanders, either in Washington or in Baghdad, to be able to exercise unerring mastery over an inherently complex and always explosive situation.

Nor is the news from Iraq all bad. Several weeks ago we argued optimistically (perhaps too optimistically) that things were looking better, and we still believe there is much in Iraq to be gratified by: continued peaceful cooperation among Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish leaders, despite many disagreements; an economy that seems to be improving; the fact that a large majority of Iraqis, as documented in polls, say their future is promising, reject political violence, and support an ongoing American presence. And much of Iraq remains, at the moment, relatively peaceful. All this is important progress.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-20040421.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Report from Sunday's Guardian. There's some dark hurmour here folks.....

Angry residents held up bloodied human remains to television cameras filming the scene, accusing U.S. helicopters of firing missiles at the market. A dead donkey lay on the road, its guts spilled. Local residents put a sign on its back saying: 'This is Bush.'

One of the mortars had struck a gas canister which had then exploded, one witness said. At the Shaheed al-Sadr hospital nearby, relatives of the dead and wounded sat on the ground weeping.

'This Bush, we don't want him,' one woman cried. 'It wasn't like this under Saddam Hussein.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1202977,00.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Death toll of U-S troops in Iraq rises

April 25, 2004 6:54 AM

Baghdad, Iraq-AP -- The explosion of a roadside bomb in Baghdad has killed a U-S soldier and sparked a gunbattle.

Military authorities say troops evacuated the dead soldier, then returned to the bomb site. But when they came back, several children were looting their vehicle. As the American soldiers approached, gunmen on neighboring rooftops opened fire and a battle ensued.

Witnesses report Iraqi casualties in the fight. It's not known whether any children were among them. With the soldier's death today, 110 U-S troops have been killed since the beginning of April -- the deadliest period yet for Americans in Iraq. At least 719 servicemembers have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

http://www.kbcitv.com/x5154.xml?Par...5s6e80.xml&NewsSection=InternationalHeadlines

Additional report from Reuters

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Four schoolchildren were killed by gunfire in Baghdad on Sunday, shortly after a roadside bomb ripped through a U.S. military vehicle, witnesses said.
Some witnesses said the children, all aged around 12, were shot dead by U.S. troops who had opened fire randomly after the blast on Canal Street in eastern Baghdad.

This could not be independently confirmed and the U.S. military had no immediate word on the incident.

"I saw a child lying on the street with a bullet hole in his neck and another in his side," said a driver who witnessed the incident. "He had his schoolbag on his back. Some 15 minutes later his relatives came and took his body away."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4930388

 

[Barking_Mad]

Fox News:

<<TERROR ALERT ELEVATED>>


Its never off that status of course..

 

[Barking_Mad]

Third American Dies from Iraq Boat Attack

April 25 — DUBAI (Reuters) - A third U.S. navy sailor died from wounds sustained in Saturday's suicide boat attack on Iraq's Basra offshore oil terminal, the U.S. Navy's Bahrain- based Fifth Fleet said Sunday. "A U.S. coast guardsman has died from injuries sustained when a dhow exploded as he and six other coalition sailors attempted to board it yesterday evening," the Fifth Fleet said in a statement.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20040425_121.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Turning Tables is written by a US soldier, or I think now ex-US soldier. He's wrritten a couple of things on his blog that he couldnt previously.

we're going to watch officers go home to be restationed...but we will not see soldiers who completed their years of dedicated service exit the army for months...because why would they want to help you if you didn't help them...sell your soul to us again and we will help you as long as it's beneficial for us...but if you decide that you still want to get out...well we're going to make it as hard as possible for you...we don't care about you anymore...

i had another soldier that was "broken"...he had a bad shoulder that was in need of surgery...they knew it...they sent him anyway...they told him..."don't worry we'll put you someplace where you won't have to wear your 40 lbs. of gear and carry around your weapon"...he could of opted to stay in the rear...but he was motivated...and he wanted to do his part as long as they did what they said they were going to do...they didn't...the poor troop couldn't even lift his right arm up...and there he was in the middle of a combat zone...carrying his combat load and chemical protective equipment every where he went with one hand...

http://turningtables.blogspot.com/

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bomb hits U.S. convoy near Falluja-Iraqi witnesses

FALLUJA, Iraq, April 25 (Reuters) - A roadside bomb struck a U.S. military convoy on the outskirts of the besieged town of Falluja on Sunday, destroying one military vehicle and inflicting casualties, Iraqi witnesses said.

They said black smoke rose from the burning vehicle on a road just outside the bastion of Sunni Muslim insurgents, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad.

There was no immediate word from the U.S. military in Baghdad. A similar attack in the capital earlier in the day killed one soldier.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LAD554867.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Spanish troops kill two insurgents in Iraq--report

MADRID, April 25 (Reuters) - Spanish soldiers in Iraq opened fire and killed two insurgents in Diwaniya, 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported on its Web site on Sunday.

"We are trying to gather information. It appears there was some kind of attack," a Spanish Defence Ministry spokesman said in Madrid. Spain's new Socialist government is withdrawing its 1,400 troops in Iraq, sent there by the previous conservative government.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L25462890.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bremer warns of 'explosive' Najaf

A highly dangerous situation has been developing in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf, the top US administrator warns. Paul Bremer's spokesman said militants were stockpiling weapons and ammunition in mosques, shrines and schools.

Iraqi citizens must make it clear they will not tolerate this, Dan Senor told reporters in Baghdad. But there are no immediate plans to send in troops to arrest Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr blamed for the unrest, a US military spokesman said. The spokesman, Lt Gen Mark Kimmitt, was unable to confirm reports by the Associated Press news agency that US troops were likely to enter parts of Najaf soon. AP quoted a US commander as saying US troops would go in, but would stay away from sensitive holy sites in the city centre.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3657651.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

This begs the question as to why they put these soldiers in the shitty Humvees in the first place.

Army Rushing More Armored Humvees to Iraq

"Then we started checking whether we still had our 10 fingers on," Monti recalled of the recent ambush south of Baghdad. Not only had all four soldiers escaped injury, but the vehicle — which had been fortified by armor plating and bulletproof glass — came through with just a few dents and a cracked windshield. "There probably would have been wounds, maybe mortal ones, in your basic Humvee," said Monti, of St. Louis. "Every vehicle that goes out on the road should be 'up-armored.' Your safety is dramatically increased."

But many in Iraq (news - web sites) are not, and attacks against them by roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades are driving up the casualty toll. On Sunday, a Humvee was engulfed in flames after a roadside bomb struck a U.S. convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing a U.S. soldier. It was not known if the Humvee had the extra armor. When the war began, only about 2 percent of Army's 110,000 Humvees were armored. Now, of the nearly 15,000 Humvees in Iraq, about 1,500 to 2,000 are armored, according to the Army. The numbers are increasing.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...=6&u=/ap/20040425/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_humvees

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq & related photo's here: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?g=events/ts/082701iraqplane&a=&tmpl=sl&ns=0&l=1&e=1&t=&prev=12

 

[Barking_Mad]

Up to one-fourth of U-S reconstruction money for Iraq is going for security

Washington-AP -- Money that should be used for rebuilding Iraq instead is going to protect workers and insure their projects.

American officials monitoring their work say U-S-financed contractors are spending as much as a quarter of their money on security because of the surging violence in Iraq. Officials say the siphoning of resources is slowing work on projects like building roads and refurbishing electric plants.

More than 18 (b) billion dollars has been appropriated to restore Iraq's economy and government by repairing and building facilities and training Iraqis. But the inspector general for the Coalition Provisional Authority says contractors were spending ten to 15 percent of their money for security costs earlier this year, and that figure could go as high as 25 percent due to the recent anti-American violence.

http://www.kctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1812448

 

[Barking_Mad]

Saudi Ambassador: 'Iraq Pay-Off Could Avoid Bloodshed'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration might have avoided a deadly insurgency in Iraq by buying the loyalty of its former military for about $200 million, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States said on Sunday. But Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan declined to say whether he had actually advised President Bush to offer former members of Saddam Hussein's military three months' pay in exchange for their services in securing Iraq.

Bandar was asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether journalist Bob Woodward was correct when he said that Bandar had advised Bush to take $200 million and "buy off, in effect, the Iraqi army." Bandar replied: "I don't talk about my conversations with the president ... but I believe that would have been the right way to go."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle....LI4PUSCRBAEKSFEY?type=topNews&storyID=4931503