by Don Mills

Courier-Journal

03/09/05

Italy, a staunch U.S. ally in Iraq despite strong domestic opposition to the war, has provided 3,000 troops and resisted growing pressure to pull them out. A clerk at the Morgana Hotel, where we stayed, declared: 'I am still trying to figure out why we are there in the first place. It is not our war.' A lot of Americans are trying to figure that out, too. This incident is just one more of the many horrible tragedies that have taken place in this war. Some 1,500 American soldiers have died, some 10,000 wounded or with limbs amputated, and more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. The costs to U.S. taxpayers continue to grow beyond $200 billion. The bombings, the killings, the kidnappings, the beheadings, the costs -- there seems to be no end...

http://tinyurl.com/65hzt


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp