- BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- A bomb
killed an American soldier in Baghdad and Spain said Tuesday it was recalling
some embassy and occupation-authority staff in fresh setbacks to U.S. efforts
in Iraq.
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- The U.S. Army said the soldier was killed and two others
were wounded when their vehicle ran over a bomb planted on the road, the
latest in a string of attacks on American forces in Iraq.
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- In the northern city of Mosul, five rocket-propelled
grenades were fired at a hotel used as a U.S. military compound but no
one was hurt. Also in Mosul, gunmen killed a second Iraqi judge in two
days, police said. The first was in southern Iraq.
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- Spain, a key U.S. ally in the war that ousted Saddam
Hussein in April, said it was recalling some civilian staff from Iraq for
consultations.
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- Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said they included some
embassy staff as well as Spaniards working with the U.S.-led Coalition
Provisional Authority running Iraq.
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- Spain did not say if the move was directly linked to
the violence and the attacks on Americans and international workers, which
have forced most foreign aid workers to leave the country.
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- Asked why the staff was being recalled, Spanish embassy
official Pablo Ruperez said in Baghdad: "I think it comes after things
like the Red Cross bombing."
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- He told Reuters that staff had already left for Jordan.
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- Suicide bombers struck four times in Baghdad on Oct.
27, killing 35 people and wounding 230 in attacks aimed at the Red Cross
offices and three police stations.
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- "CONSULTATIONS"
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- At a news conference in Berlin, Aznar said: "We
have called back the people who work with the Authority (CPA), the Spanish
experts, and also some of the embassy staff."
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- "There is no evacuation. It's a call for an exchange
of opinions and consultations," he said. "We have to evaluate
the situation with them and, if need be, take the opportune decisions."
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- Aznar also reiterated Spain's commitment to Iraq.
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- The Spanish action followed fresh vows by President Bush
Monday that the United States would not abandon what he called its vital
mission in Iraq.
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- "The enemy in Iraq believes America will run. That's
why they're willing to kill innocent civilians, relief workers, coalition
troops. America will never run," said Bush, whose approval ratings
are declining in the United States over the war.
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- Bush's comments were his first since the 16 soldiers
were killed when guerrillas shot down their CH-47 Chinook helicopter Sunday
in the worst single attack since the U.S. invasion.
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- On Monday the U.S. Senate approved Bush's request for
$87.5 billion to finance Iraq's occupation and reconstruction. The bill
gives the president almost everything he sought to fund operations in Iraq
and Afghanistan through much of next year.
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- In New York, the United Nations put its head of security
on leave after an independent panel blamed senior officials for sloppy
safety precautions before the August suicide bombing of the U.N. offices
in Baghdad that killed 22 staff members and visitors, diplomats said.
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- Later this week Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected
to appoint a team of experts to assess who was to blame for the lapses
and suggest how to overhaul the system. Meanwhile Tun Myat, a lawyer from
Myanmar, is to go on leave until the probe is completed, the envoys said.
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