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Gen David Petraeus told the BBC he thought Tehran had trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets.
He said Iran was adding what he described as "lethal accelerants" to a very combustible mix.
There has as yet been no response from Iran to the accusations.
Gen David Petraeus told the BBC he thought Tehran had trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets...
..."The rockets that were launched at the Green Zone yesterday, for example... were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets," he said, adding that the groups that fired them were funded and trained by the Quds Force.
Source | Wall Street Journal | U.S. Blames Shiite Militias For Green Zone Attacks
March 24, 2008 3:52 p.m.
BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military blamed Iranian-backed Shiite militia factions on Monday for a spate of rocket attacks that struck the Green Zone and surrounding areas, a day after the overall U.S. death toll in the five-year conflict rose to 4,000.
President Bush marked the deaths of 4,000 U.S. forces in Iraq, saying that their sacrifices have "laid the foundation for peace for generations to come."
Source | Wall Street Journal | U.S. Blames Shiite Militias For Green Zone Attacks
"You regret every casualty, every loss," Vice President Dick Cheney said. "The president is the one that has to make that decision to send young men and women into harm's way. It never gets any easier."
If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. (source: Senate Foreign Relations Committe testimony)
While maneuvering the helicopters from refueling positions directly behind the C-130 Hercules fuel aircraft so the C-130s could taxi out and take off, one of the helicopter pilots attempted to hop over its C-130 and became disoriented in the dust cloud raised by its rotors and crashed onto the C-130.
In the ensuing explosion and fire, eight U.S. servicemen died: five USAF aircrew in the C-130, and three USMC aircrew in the RH-53D (the helicopter pilot survived).
The entire task force stood transfixed as Bluebeard III spun around in the air and came down on the EC-130's wing. The wing broke and exploded as fuel spilled out, and the chopper flipped into its side. Secondary explosions rocked Desert I sending shrapnel flying into Bluebeards I, IV, and IIX. Republic IV had fourteen people on board, and the ones who survived the crash began scrambling out -some on fire. Several members of the task force ran to the crash to help rescue the crewmembers from the airplane, while others began running to get away from the heavily damaged Bluebeards on the ground.
All of the choppers had taken heavy damage from the explosion, and the only fully working Bluebeard was VII. The task force had to get the hell out now, and one chopper wasn't worth slowing everyone down. Col Kyle began directing everyone onto the C-130s, and in minutes the planes were speeding down the desert runway. Looking back, Kyle observed that the rotor blades on one of the Bluebeards were still turning. In the rush to get out, the crew didn't even have the luxury of turning the engines off.
Everyone's heart began to sink. The tremendous weight of mission failure was bad enough, but there were 8 fallen comrades back at the crash site. The fire made it impossible to retrieve them, but in military ethos you never leave a man behind. There were also classified documents on the remaining helicopters that were supposed to be retrieved or destroyed. A request for an airstrike was called out to Red Barn, but COMJTF turned the request down. If there were any survivors at the site that had been missed, they would be killed, and the fighters might encounter Iranian aircraft - an unacceptable escalation. The flight back to Masirah would take about 4 hours - plenty of time to rethink every minute of the mission.
The bodies of the eight men were eventually returned to the United States, and a memorial service was held at Arlington National Cemetery.