December 3, 2006

Army death: Staff Sgt. Jeremy W. Mulhair, 35, of Omaha, Neb., died Thursday in Taji, Iraq, of injuries suffered when an explosive detonated near his vehicle. Mulhair was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

To seek consensus: President Bush pledged yesterday to seek bipartisan consensus on Iraq policy, as he awaited a panel's recommendations on how to shift course in the unpopular war. He offered conciliatory words but no concessions to critics of his Iraq policy before a report Wednesday from a panel led by former Secretary of State James Baker, which is expected to urge a gradual withdrawal of U.S. combat troops. He used his weekly radio address to reassert his commitment to bolster Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki after their summit Thursday in Jordan, where he insisted Washington was not looking for a “graceful exit” from Iraq.

Iraqi offensive: Backed by U.S. troops, the Iraqi army's 5th Division yesterday launched a new offensive to rout suspected al-Qaeda-allied terrorists from Baquba, the capital of a province that has many Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, warring tribes and criminal gangs. While a U.S. military statement said the weekend operation shows the “commitment of Iraqi army officers and soldiers to protect and secure the people,” local residents and Sunni leaders point to the Iraqi division's track record as one of the chief problems plaguing the restive Diyala province north of Baghdad. Brig. Gen. Shakir Hulayl al-Kaabi, commander of the division, oversees a mostly Shiite force in an area where at least half the population is Sunni. The U.S. officers who previously worked with him have been reported as saying they tried to have him removed for refusing orders and acting on a sectarian agenda.

Case mishandled: Army officials destroyed critical evidence that could have determined who shot and killed Pfc. Jesse Buryj at an Iraqi checkpoint in May 2004, one of several problems with the friendly-fire inquiry that might permanently shroud Buryj's death in mystery, according to an Army inspector general's review. The lengthy inquiry found that criminal investigators destroyed bullet fragments, agents failed to collect ballistic evidence from weapons at the checkpoint, medical personnel made incorrect notations on Buryj's records and military officials knew his death was a friendly-fire case months before they officially notified his family.

First taste of war: About 2,200 Marines who left their ships in the Persian Gulf two weeks ago for the dangerous city of Ramadi and other locales around Anbar province, are getting their first taste of the war. Two battalions from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit have been assigned to Ramadi, the capital of a Sunni Arab province that stretches west from Baghdad to the borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Only about 20 percent of those in the battalions have fought previously in Iraq, although some have combat experience from Afghanistan, Kosovo and the first Gulf War, said 1st Sgt. Eric Carlson from the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines.

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