Iraq 20 Nov 2007 - 7th report

As of 4:16 pm EST icasualties.org had raised its tally of U.S. military fatalities from the war in Iraq to 3875.

Iraq Coalition Casualty Count

11/20/07 CBS/AP: U.S. Helicopter Crash In Iraq Kills 2, 12 injured
A U.S. military helicopter crashed Tuesday southeast of Baghdad, killing two soldiers and injuring 12, the U.S. military said. Initial reports indicated the crash was not due to hostile fire, the military said.

Two killed as US helicopter crashes in Iraq

AFP 3:49 pm EST Tuesday 20 November 2007

A US military helicopter crashed near Salman Pak, 25 kilometres (16 miles) southeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing two soldiers and wounding 12, the American military said.

Military spokesman Specialist Charles Espie told AFP that the helicopter crashed due to causes yet to be determined.

"It was not brought down by enemy fire," he said.

"Two coalition force soldiers were killed and 12 were wounded," Espie said.

A military statement said an investigation would be conducted to determine the cause of the incident.

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Is there any doubt that Iraq is beyond any possibility of reconcilation between Sunnis and Shiites? See previous entry in 4th report today about how Ammar al-Hakim and his Shaheed al-Mihrab Foundation is a major player with a vision for a Shiite Iraq.

Al-Maliki lashes out at Sunni leader

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
4:34 pm EST Tue 20 Nov 2007

Iraq's prime minister lashed out at the country's Sunni Arab vice president in an interview published Tuesday, drawing attention to a bitter rift between two key politicians from rival sects at a time the U.S. is pressing for Iraqi unity.

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The outburst by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, printed in a newspaper read throughout the Arab world, occurred as American officials are urging the Iraqis to take advantage of a downturn in violence to resolve their differences before next year's planned drawdown of U.S. forces.

In the interview, published by Al-Hayat, a London-based, Arabic-language daily, al-Maliki, a Shiite, said Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi was to blame for a backlog of legislation adopted by parliament but not yet ratified by the three-man presidential council of which the Sunni is a member.

Al-Maliki also said al-Hashemi's Iraq Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc in parliament, was not representative of the country's Sunni Arab community.

The prime minister said he had given up trying to persuade five members of al-Hashemi's bloc to return to Cabinet posts they abandoned last August in a dispute with al-Maliki.

Al-Maliki said he planned to name other Sunnis from Anbar province and the cities of Tikrit and Mosul to those Cabinet posts and that "we are in the final selection stage."

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