Friday, December 24, 2004

General Ham "takes responsibility"

And you know what that means these days.

The Army general in charge of northern Iraq took "personal responsibility" yesterday for the Mosul mess hall bombing that he said probably was carried out by a terrorist wearing an Iraqi military uniform.

"I failed to identify some shortcoming that allowed this to occur," Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of 8,500 troops in U.S. Task Force Olympia, told CNN.
  NY Daily News article

Yes, but it wasn't him that attacked his troops.

"It is an enemy success," Ham said, adding that he feared "copycat" attacks by terror groups who "will use this as a recruiting tool."

Ham indirectly was criticized for permitting his troops to use the mess hall without wearing their body armor.

Army Col. Rhonda Cornum, chief doctor and commander of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, said the injuries she was treating from soldiers wounded in Mosul were "very different from what we've been seeing."

"Usually the trunk of the body is protected," and the hospital would treat mainly wounded extremities, Cornum said. "In this case, we have neck, chest and abdominal injuries." Thirty-five of the 69 wounded in Mosul were taken to Landstuhl.

Hey, you can wear body armor and still get blown up.

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