Iraq bridge collapse traps U.S. soldiers

[Xipe Totec]

Source: Associated Press

MAHMOUDIYA, Iraq - An apparent suicide car bomber took aim at a U.S. convoy carrying demolition experts on Sunday, collapsing a major highway overpass south of Baghdad and trapping American soldiers in the rubble.

The vehicle detonated beside a support pillar, bringing down an Army checkpoint and a tent that had been on the collapsing span, dubbed "Checkpoint 20" by the U.S. military. The overpass, one of two crossing over Iraq's main north-south highway in the region, appeared to be closed to all but military traffic at the time.

A U.S. Army quick reaction force and the staff of Armor Group International, a private security firm that was in charge of the passing convoy, worked for some 45 minutes to pull trapped men from the rubble about six miles east of Mahmoudiya.

There appeared to be several casualties, including an Iraqi interpreter who was wounded, according to Donald Campbell, an official with the security firm who was at the scene.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070610/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_070610133820

[Gregorian]

1. "Private security firm".

I cannot believe this mess. Contractors running around, Blackwater goons patrolling Iraq land. What the hell.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. The bridge war continues.

The insurgency is crippling the road transport system. They have a plan. Do we?

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

6. Very good point, Warren...We better start backing out of there soon..

Before there is no safe way out, except by air. And I believe they are putting the Helicopters under pressure, as well.

I really cannot see a good outcome to this mess we are in.

[Kagemusha]

3. Oh that's just great. A successful attack on a bridge closed to civvie traffic.

That's just great.

[cliss]

4. ANOTHER Security firm,

Armor Group International. I thought the others were bad enough. Just chaos.

[Gregorian]

5. Ah, I scanned for Blackwater. So it's another company. Hmmm. Now I wonder.

This might be something worth researching. So Blackwater is not the only company of civie goons. I should have guessed. I also should have read the article through. I'm so pissed off today I can hardly read.

[w8liftinglady]

9. I remember something recently about this group-another crony deal

I'll research it,too

[Gregorian]

14. It appears to have only a million dollar deal. Perhaps British.

They're some kind of transportation oriented security group. But one thing I'm seeing is that these groups are like pawns in that they're created and folded at the whim of the bigger companies.

These wars are nothing but corporate jobs.

[w8liftinglady]

11. AGI...from sourcewatch...enjoy

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ArmorGroup

[starroute]

12. Armor Group and the spy biz

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20060821/ai_n16674321

Former MI6 spy joins Armor Group to hunt down new business
Independent, The (London), Aug 21, 2006 by Saeed Shah

Andrew Fulton, a former top M16 spy, has joined Armor Group, the security personnel business that provides bodyguards in Iraq, in a role to bring in new business.

Mr Fulton, 62, is reckoned to have risen through the ranks of the Secret Intelligence Services to become Britain's sixth most powerful spy. He was head of station in Washington in his last posting, from 1995 to 1999. . . .

In his role at Armor Group, which is chaired by Tory grandee Malcolm Rifkind, Mr Fulton will have "a mandate to focus on developing new business opportunities in the security consulting market". In a press release, he is described by Armor simply as a "former senior diplomat".

In an unrelated spy connection, Armor's chief operating officer stepped down earlier this year in order to return to the CIA to become its deputy director-general. Steven Kappes had joined Armor just six months earlier from the CIA, where he had been director of operations.


(On edit: That's this Steven Kappes, by the way -- the one Pete Hoekstra accused of being part of some Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame cabal: http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/62/21030)

[starroute]

13. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the Armor Group

http://redpepper.org.uk/KYE/x-kye-Aug2004.html

August 2004

Rifkind is, in fact, an expert at making money from Labour policies. Despite leading the minority of top Tories who opposed the war against Iraq, he is currently cashing in on the occupation of the country. In April he started work as chairman of the Armor Group, whose mercenaries are currently guarding Bechtel staff and British diplomats working in Iraq. Only two years ago Rifkind used the pages of The Spectator to declare: ‘The prospect of an American occupying army having to remain for months, perhaps years, in a country as important as Iraq is profoundly disturbing and would be destabilising.’

Armor director Christopher Beese told the Scottish broadsheet The Herald that the company hired Rifkind because the British government was considering regulating private military firms and the former minister ‘could make the odd contact in terms of getting things done in government’. Beese added: ‘He understands our industry, particularly because of the directorships he already holds with petroleum companies.’

And, truth be told, Rifkind is a director or adviser for three oil-related firms: Ramco Energy, Petrofac and BHP Billiton. Rifkind was hired by Australia-based BHP in 1997, as a ‘door-opener’ to the Middle East. Interesting information about BHP’s activities in Iraq emerged shortly after the ‘liberation’ of Baghdad last year, when the newspaper The Australian published details from documents taken from the burning Iraqi foreign office. It seems that BHP began discussions about working with Iraq’s oil industry in 1996: the firm wanted to be ready to move in if sanctions against the country were lifted, or to work under the UN-regulated oil for food programme.


http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1504646,00.html

June 12, 2005

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Tory Foreign Secretary who is now standing for the leadership of the Conservative Party, is at the centre of a controversy involving a secret attempt to discuss oil deals with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

Rifkind's name was discovered on confidential Iraqi diplomatic communiques found in the country's ransacked Foreign Ministry in Baghdad shortly after the fall of Saddam in 2003.

The contents of the papers have been confirmed as genuine and reveal that an Australian oil company which Rifkind was working for tried to open a business relationship with Saddam's government. One paper written in Arabic, with the stamp of the Republic of Iraq's Foreign Ministry, is marked 'confidential'. At the top Rifkind's name is underlined. It discloses that on 11 February 1999 Rifkind's executive assistant at the firm BHP sent a letter to Iraq's ambassador at the UN, Saeed al-Mousawi, offering him a meeting with the former cabinet minister.


http://www.carbonweb.org/showitem.asp?article=166&parent=9

4 July 2006

Dramatic new evidence has been released of high-level lobbying for Iraqi oil contracts, on behalf of oil companies BHP Billiton and Shell.

Former British Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind – who bid unsuccessfully last year for the leadership of the Conservative Party – promised to push US Vice President Dick Cheney for the oil companies to be granted a contract for one of Iraq’s largest oilfields, just weeks after the Iraq war.

The new information comes at a highly sensitive time, when the USA has stepped up its efforts to influence Iraqi oil policy.

[pretzel4gore]

7. bush is doing such a good job...

it's the tree-falling-in-empty-forest idea, does it make a noise if there no ears to hear. In junyer's administration's case, the answer remains NO; there was no noise, the tree was down all the time, move on, nothing to see here yada yada.. But Lebanon! Now listen to that huge insane battle of noisy bastids! and the Gaza Strip, lookit them Jews shooting them there Ay-rabs! bang bang shootem up!
BIG TIME NEWS!
holy mackeral, as tim russert always says....

[KG]

8. hmmm, sounds like more of that good news the liberal media isn't reporting!

[19jet54]

10. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

:spank: What "idiot" came up with this invasion & occupation plan? :spank:

[Eugene]

15. Update: Iraq: Car bomber kills 3 U.S. soldiers

Source: Associated Press

Iraq: Car bomber kills 3 U.S. soldiers

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
6 minutes ago

MAHMOUDIYA, Iraq - With a thunderous rumble and
cloud of dust and smoke, a suicide car bomb brought
down a section of highway bridge south of Baghdad,
killing three U.S. soldiers and wounding six from
a checkpoint guarding the crossing and blocking
traffic on Iraq's main north-south artery.

The U.S. military said engineers were dispatched with
bulldozers and other heavy equipment to clear the
highway, which was partially blocked by debris from
the overpass. An Iraqi interpreter also was wounded
in the attack, according to the statement.

Donald Campbell, a 40-year-old Scot with the private
security firm Armor Group International, and his
colleagues were in a passing convoy and worked with
a U.S. Army quick reaction force for some 45 minutes
to pull trapped men from the rubble, scrambling over
the fallen concrete.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070611/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

[w8liftinglady]

16. NOW I remember AGI-I wrote a LTTE about them before Memorial Day

(Armor Holding is the parent company of AGI)

we prepare to celebrate Memorial Day,where we mourn those who have given all for our country,yet another case of war profiteering at our troops' expense evolves.

From 2003-2006,Col.John Norwood was Project manager for soldier equipment for the Pentagon.As such,he was responsible for testing body armor used by our troops in Iraq.

At that time,Pinnacle Armor's Dragon Skin body armor testing was abruptly halted,and has never resumed.The exclusive contract went to Armor Holdings,creator of Interceptor body armor.Armor Holdings received 360 million dollars in contracts in 2006 alone.Col. Norwood retired in 2006,and was hired as Vice President for Aerospace and Defense contracts of a large government contractor....Armor Holdings.Subsequent testing has shown Dragon Skin to be far superior to Interceptor body armor,and is actually used by most of the FBI,CIA,and White House staff.Meantime,mothers of deployed soldiers are holding fundraisers to raise the money to buy the superior body armor for their sons and daughters deployed in Iraq.

Let's just add this to a long list of businesses who have the blood of our soldiers on their hands-Halliburton,KBR,Blackwater...all businesses who have become fabulously wealthy as our president rejects a 3.5% raise for our troops,as our government continues to run this war on the cheap,as the troop death toll mounts with no end in sight,as our veterans of this war are ignored,as their families suffer silently.This is how we honor our troops,America?Does this offend you?Contact your Congressman,Joe Barton,and your Senators,Kay Bailey-Hutchison and John Cornyn,and insist they investigate these treasonous acts against our troops.Your silence indicates your approval of this.There was a time when America would not have stood for this.What has happened to us?