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Bush vows to find banned arms, US soldier killed ( 2003-06-06 08:46) (7) US President Bush vowed Thursday to uncover the facts about Saddam Hussein 's alleged weapons of mass destruction as US troops came under attack again in Iraq with one soldier killed and seven wounded. In the troubled western city of Falluja, an assailant fired at least one rocket-propelled grenade at American troops, killing a soldier and wounding five, the US military and residents. A US military spokesman said two American soldiers were also wounded in Baghdad when two attackers fired on them as they were guarding a bank. The Falluja attack took place as the United States sent more than 3,000 extra soldiers and dozens of tanks to crack down on gunmen in the Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad, roughly doubling the number of troops deployed in the area. Eight weeks after deposing Saddam, US and British forces have struggled to impose their grip on the capital and other parts of Iraq. They have found no weapons of mass destruction. "We're on the look. We'll reveal the truth," Bush told cheering US troops at a base in Qatar. A US-run radio station in Baghdad appealed to Iraqis to help find the missing arsenal. The failure to find the banned weapons, cited by London and Washington as the main reason for the war, has fueled a political storm, especially in Britain. "Everybody who has taken part in developing, storing, moving and acquiring weapons of mass destruction should provide coalition forces with information," said the US-run radio. The United States and its allies are sending more experts to Iraq to join the hunt, but have largely shut out the previous U.N. arms teams in a stance challenged by opponents of the war such as Russia and France. BLIX'S SWAN SONG The head of the U.N. arms team, Hans Blix, said Thursday that although his team had not found Iraq had resumed its production of banned weapons, that did not mean such programs did not exist. Blix, who retires on June 30, said in his final report to the Security Council Iraq had not accounted fully for all its past arms programs. He wants the council to exploit a decade of U.N. arms research in Iraq and let U.N. experts finish the job. A small team from the International Atomic Energy Agency is due in Iraq Friday to check on looting of atomic materials, but the United States has barred it from visiting all but one site at a nuclear research complex south of Baghdad. Defense Department officials said Thursday US forces would accompany the U.N. inspectors to the site, and that the visit set no precedent for a future role for the IAEA. Iraqis care little about the weapons issue, but many resent postwar chaos and what they see as a US occupation. "The Americans are behaving like the Israeli army. They have been here every night, looking over our homes and preventing us from moving," said a Falluja resident after Thursday's attack. "This is a tribal area and we do not accept this. The attacks have nothing to do with Saddam." US political efforts have run into criticism from groups upset by a new plan to appoint members of a proposed interim Iraqi political council, rather than have them chosen by a national conference as earlier suggested. Two Kurdish and Shi'ite Muslim leaders said they were unhappy with the revised plan, but their factions had not yet decided whether to accept places on an appointed council. "The issue is still under discussion," said Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, leader of the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, after talks with Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani in the holy city of Najaf. US and British officials say they hope names for a 25-to 30-member interim political council will emerge by consensus from their talks with a broad range of Iraqis. Seven Iraqi political groups, and possibly others, are due to meet top US administrator Paul Bremer Friday for more talks on the political transition. Efforts to revive Iraq's prostrate economy were boosted Thursday when the state oil marketing organization tendered to sell its first crude since the fall of Saddam.
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