3 US Soldiers, Interpreter Killed in Iraq
By VOA News
23 February 2009
Three U.S. soldiers and an interpreter were killed Monday during combat operations in Iraq's Diyala province north of Baghdad.
The U.S. military did not release details about Monday's incident. It came two weeks after a suicide bomber killed four U.S. soldiers and an interpreter in the deadliest attack against U.S. forces in nine months.
Elsewhere in Iraq, officials said at least five people including two security officers were killed Monday in Baghdad.
Two officers and a civilian were killed when a gunman opened fire at a checkpoint in western Baghdad, and a roadside bomb near the Agriculture Ministry killed at least two people and wounded six.
Despite the violence, Iraqi officials reopened the country's National Museum on Monday, nearly six years after it was looted in the chaotic aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion.
Less than half of the antiquities stolen in 2003 have been recovered, but they were made the centerpiece of Monday's reopening. Many of the museum's halls remain closed.
The National Museum holds artifacts tracing human history, from its early days in the "cradle of civilization" between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Some of the antiquities were ruined, with thieves lopping the heads off of statues.
Former museum director Donny George accused U.S. troops of permitting "the crime of the century" for letting looters carry away the museum's treasures.
Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. secretary of defense during the invasion, dismissed the severity of the looting.
Authorities are touting the reopening as another milestone in Baghdad's slow return to stability after years of bloodshed.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.
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