"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" -Oscar Wilde |
"The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself." -- Proverbs 11:25 |
Two suicide bombers blew themselves up Monday in a crowd of police officers south of Baghdad, killing up to 30 people and wounding dozens, and an Iraqi aircraft with four Americans and an Iraqi on board crashed in eastern Iraq.
Also Monday, U.S. forces mistakenly detained a Sunni political leader on the second day of an Iraqi-led security sweep in the capital.
The Iraqi aircraft carrying four U.S. personnel and one Iraqi crashed sometime before noon during an operational mission, the military said in a statement, but it did not say what type of aircraft was involved or whether those on board had died.
U.S.-led coalition forces had secured the area where the aircraft when down in the eastern province of Diyala and the crash was "under investigation," the military said. It also said the crash was reported to a joint communication center in the town of Khanaqin, near the border with Iran.
Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, head of Iraq's largest Sunni Arab political party and short-time president of the now-dissolved U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council, was taken from his home in western Baghdad at about 6 a.m. by military forces, party officials said.
The U.S. military later confirmed it had mistakenly arrested Abdul-Hamid, questioned him and released him shortly after.
As we look across these acres, we begin to tally the cost of our freedom, and we count it a privilege to be citizens of the country served by so many brave men and women. (Applause.) And we must honor them by completing the mission for which they gave their lives, by defeating the terrorists, advancing the cause of liberty, and building a safer world.