NYT, Attack on copter is just the latest show of insurgents' force
BAGHDAD L. Paul Bremer 3rd, the special American representative for Iraq, has tried to put a positive face on the state of affairs in Iraq.
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Saturday night, during one of his rare news conferences, he lauded the Madrid conference at which a variety of countries pledged grants or loans totaling $13 billion for Iraqi reconstruction, and he praised the U.S. Congress for approving President George W. Bush's $87 billion supplemental spending request for Iraq and Afghanistan.
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But as Bremer knows all too well, no matter what positive political developments the governing authorities may have to promote, the events that define Iraq in the eyes of most people around the world are the violent attacks that take Iraqi and American lives almost every day.
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So after citing the good news, Bremer did not hesitate to say: “I predict there will continue to be attacks, because they believe they can drain the coalition's will with a steady stream of casualties.”
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Given the reality here, that was a safe prediction. Less than 24 hours later, 15 Americans died when their helicopter was shot down over Ameriya, about 65 kilometers, or 40 miles, west of here, the deadliest strike against Americans since the end of the war.
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American officials here had no public comment about the attack, except to confirm that it had occurred. One coalition military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that it might have been “inevitable.”
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As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pointed out again in Washington on Sunday, Iraq is awash in unsecured weapons caches, including some that contain dozens of surface-to-air missiles like one that is believed to have been used in the attack Sunday.
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Those or other projectiles have been fired at military aircraft almost every day for the last few months, but none hit their targets before.
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The coalition official said he did not think the attack was related to the threats that were made late last week against schools, hospitals and other unspecified targets in and around Baghdad. Those threats of attacks Saturday rattled the city.
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Children stayed home from school; patients failed to show up for their appointments at hospitals; shopkeepers reported unusually few customers. But Saturday, no attack occurred, suggesting that the people making the threats were practicing a form of psychological warfare.
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The attack on helicopters Sunday, the official said, “was part of a continuum.” Guerrillas have been firing missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and other projectiles at aircraft for many weeks, and Sunday, “unfortunately, they got lucky.”
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On Saturday, Bremer vowed that the continuing attacks would not sap America's will. Rumsfeld offered a similar sentiment Sunday following the attack.
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Ahmad Chalabi, a member of the Iraqi governing council who is close to the American authorities, said in an interview that his information indicated that all the attacks against Americans and Iraqis – suicide and remote attacks, on the ground and in the air, propaganda and violent – are “all under the same command.” And they will continue, he added, until Americans turn responsibility for security over to the Iraqis.
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“The Americans, their methods, their operations, their procedures, are singularly unsuited to deal with this kind of problem,” he said.
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For the guerrillas, Chalabi added, it is easy to stir anti-American sentiment because “the Americans are nice. You can shout at them. But unless you shoot at them, there are no sanctions. They don't do anything.”
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Iraqis cheered and celebrated near the crash site Sunday, and as Chalabi noted, the Americans did nothing to respond.
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Rumsfeld reiterated on Sunday that the United States wanted to speed up the training of new Iraqi forces so they could take over responsibilities for security.
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Still, Bremer said on Saturday, it will take until next September to recruit and train 200,000 soldiers and officers, suggesting that American and British military forces can look forward to a violent year.
