Who’s telling the truth?
U.S. commanders said Monday they had killed up to 54 insurgents in the fiercest battle since Saddam Hussein’s government fell nearly eight months ago, but townspeople disputed that claim, saying only about nine Iraqis were killed in the battle Sunday, most of them noncombatants.
Frankly, I don’t accept either version at face value.
At any rate, this isn’t good:
“All the people in town today are asking for revenge,” said Majid Fadel al-Samarai, 50, an emergency-room worker at the Samarra General Hospital who said he counted nine dead people at the hospital on Sunday. “They want to kill the Americans like they killed our civilians. Give me a gun, and I will also fight.”
And that’s a middle-aged emergency-room worker. Sheesh.