U.S. helicopters strike high-rises in Baghdad

[Ron Burgundy]

Reuters - U.S. helicopters battled gunmen holedup in Baghdad high-rises on Wednesday, fighting to regaincontrol in the city's center on a day that a key U.S. Senatecommittee voted against President George W. Bush's plan to sendmore troops to Iraq.

In Washington, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committeebrushed aside Bush's plea to give his new war strategy a chanceand voted 12-9 for the resolution against his plan to add21,500 troops in Baghdad and Anbar province, heartland of theSunni Muslim insurgency.

Only one member of Bush's Republican party, Nebraska Sen.Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record), who had accused the Bush administration of playing"ping-pong" with American lives, broke ranks to vote for theresolution, due for a vote by the entire Senate next week.

The non-binding measure says the troop increase is not inthe U.S. national interest. The vote came only hours after Bushlaid out his case for his Iraq plan to the public and a jointsession of the U.S. Congress in his annual State of the Unionaddress on Tuesday night and called on lawmakers for theirsupport.

"On this day, at this hour, it is still within our power toshape the outcome of the battle. Let us find our resolve, andturn events toward victory," Bush said.

In Baghdad, 30 insurgents were killed and 35 detainedduring gunbattles, Iraq's Defense Ministry said, in what theU.S. military said was a fight to control a major streetcutting through the city's heart.

The U.S. military said a U.S. soldier was killed in centralBaghdad but would not say whether it was during the clashes.

'TERRORISTS'

U.S. and Iraqi troops backed by Apache attack helicoptersand armored Stryker vehicles firing heavy machine guns foughtmilitants in Haifa Street in a battle that began arounddaybreak, U.S. military spokesman Major Steven Lamb said.

U.S. troops fired mortars after coming under machinegun,mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attack during the operationto restore Iraqi security control of the Sunni insurgentstronghold, within 2 km (1.2 miles) of the Green Zone, theheavily fortified compound housing Iraq's government.

"A lot has been coming from high-rise buildings. We arefiring at terrorists in those buildings," Lamb told Reuters.

He had no details on casualties, but a local resident saidhe had counted the bodies of six men.

A journalist said he helped transport 37 wounded people toa hospital, including women and children, in three ambulancesthat managed to get through the security cordon.

Haifa Street, built by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, runsalong the west bank of the Tigris River. Helicopters circledoverhead amid the repetitive thud of mortar fire.

U.S. and Iraqi forces said they had killed more than 100militants in the area two weeks ago. The Iraqi government saidthen Haifa Street was riddled with "terrorist hideouts" andthat it had captured many foreign Arab fighters linked to alQaeda in that operation.

The U.S. military said Wednesday's mission was "not anoperation designed solely to target Sunni insurgents, butrather aimed at rapidly isolating all active insurgents andgaining control of this key central Baghdad location."

Battling growing Sunni-Shi'ite violence, Shi'ite PrimeMinister Nuri al-Maliki has announced a major security plan forBaghdad, vowing to crack down on violence on all sides. But hisaides stress it has not yet started.

The 21,500 additional U.S. troops would bolster newcrackdown, and the Bush administration says it would not beswayed by the Senate resolution.

"It won't stop us," Vice President Dick Cheney told CNN."We are moving forward ... in terms of this effort, thepresident has made his decision."

Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the foreignrelations committee and a 2008 presidential hopeful, said theresolution was "not an attempt to embarrass the president." Hesaid the measure might be rewritten to attract more Republicanswho have soured on the war.

The Muslim Scholars Association, a leading Sunni clericsgroup, condemned Wednesday's Haifa Street operation as "acampaign of genocide."

And in the United States, anti-war protesters planned toconverge on Washington on Saturday to pressure Congress tobring U.S. troops home.

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell, Steve Holland andTabassum Zakaria in Washington, and Ahmed Rasheed, Aseel Kamiand Alastair Macdonald in Baghdad)

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070124/ts_nm/iraq_dc [link]