McCain touts crackdown during Baghdad visit

updated 7:59 p.m. ET April 1, 2007

BAGHDAD - After a heavily guarded trip to a Baghdad market, Sen. John McCain insisted Sunday that a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in the capital was working and said Americans lacked a “full picture” of the progress. The U.S. military later reported six soldiers were killed in roadside bombings southwest of Baghdad.

Two of the U.S. soldiers were killed Saturday and four others died Sunday in what appeared to be coordinated attacks, the military said. The four soldiers died as they were responding to the first explosion which killed two, indicating the attacks took place in the last minutes of Saturday and shortly after midnight on Sunday.

McCain, a Republican presidential hopeful, acknowledged a difficult task lies ahead in Iraq, but criticized the media for not giving Americans enough information about the recent drop in execution-style sectarian killings, the establishment of security posts throughout the city and Sunni tribal efforts against al-Qaida in the western Anbar province.

‘Very cautious optimism’
“These and other indicators are reason for cautious, very cautious optimism about the effects of the new strategy,” said McCain, who was leading a Republican congressional delegation to Iraq that included Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Members of the delegation spoke at a Green Zone news conference after they rode from Baghdad’s airport in armored vehicles and under heavy guard to visit the city’s largest market. They said the trips were proof that security was improving in the capital. Prominent visitors normally make the trip from the airport to the city center by helicopter.

The congressmen, who wore body armor during their hourlong shopping excursion, said they were impressed with the resilience and warmth of the Iraqi people, some of whom would not take money for their souvenirs. They were accompanied by the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.

While the capital has seen a recent dip in violence as extra U.S. and Iraqi troops have flooded the streets, an Iraqi military spokesman said that militants fleeing the crackdown have made areas outside the capital “breeding grounds for violence,” spreading deadly bombings and sectarian attacks to areas once relatively untouched.

Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, the spokesman, promised the recent attacks would not derail the neighborhood sweeps that began in Baghdad on Feb. 14. “The terrorist elements are backed into a corner and we are going to continue to carry out these operations,” he said.

More than 600 Iraqis have been killed in sectarian violence since March 25, most in a series of high-profile suicide bombings. Among them were at least 152 people killed in a suicide truck bombing in Tal Afar — the deadliest single strike since the war began four years ago. Shiites, including police, went on a revenge shooting rampage afterward, killing at least 45 Sunni men.

New attacks
In the latest Iraqi violence, a bomb hit a popular market in Tuz Khormato, 130 miles north of Baghdad on Sunday, killing three people and wounding four. It was the second attack in the city in as many days. Two Iraqis seeking work were killed in a car bombing on Saturday.

A suicide car bomber in a truck targeted an Iraqi army building in the northern city of Mosul, killing two civilians and wounding 22 people, including 15 soldiers, police spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim al-Jibouri said.

Two top Sunni officials — lawmaker Omar Abdul-Sattar and Omar al-Jubouri, an aide to Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi — escaped an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb struck their convoy as it passed through one of Baghdad’s most restive neighborhoods — the latest in a series of attacks by suspected Sunni insurgents against fellow Sunnis who have joined the political process.

Militants at an illegal checkpoint abducted 11 Shiite construction workers near Khalis, north of Baghdad in volatile Diyala province. Three women in the group were later freed. Shiite militias, Sunni insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi forces have been battling for weeks in the province.

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