Attack kills U.S. soldier in Baghdad

U.N. vehicles were attacked Sunday, and an Iraqi driver died.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A U.S. soldier and his Iraqi interpreter were killed in a grenade and gun attack in north Baghdad today, and the top American commander here said he planned to establish an Iraqi militia to patrol the country.
The dead soldier was from the 1st Armored Division, spokesman Cpl. Todd Pruden said. It brought to 152 today the number of U.S. troops killed in action since the March 20 start of war -- five more than during the 1991 Gulf War.
Others killed
Two American soldiers and an Iraqi employee of a U.N.-affiliated relief agency were killed Sunday. The soldiers died in an ambush by attackers using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms near Tal Afar, a town west of the northern city of Mosul.
Meanwhile, the new chief of American and allied forces in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid, visited the country for the first time since taking over the command from Gen. Tommy Franks.
Abizaid announced plans today to create a nearly 7,000-strong force of Iraqis to work with U.S. soldiers. It would consist of eight battalions of armed Iraqi militiamen, each with about 850 men.
They will be trained by conventional U.S. forces -- a job usually handled by American special operations forces -- and are expected to be ready to begin operating within 45 days, he said.
Previously peaceful
The area of Sunday's convoy attack near Tal Afar, 240 miles northwest of Baghdad, had been relatively peaceful in recent weeks, and the ambush was a worrying development for American forces trying to bring stability to Iraq.
Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, speaking to NBC's "Meet the Press," said there was no evidence of central control in the assaults, calling them "highly professional but very small, sort of squad-level attacks, five or six people at a time attacking us."
Still, he said, running Saddam to ground would ease the situation.
"The sooner we can either kill him or capture him, the better, because the fact that his fate is unknown certainly gives his supporters the chance to go around and try to rally support for him," said Bremer.
More violence
In other violence Sunday, a two-car convoy carrying members of the International Organization for Migration was ambushed near the southern city of Hilla when a pickup truck drove alongside one car and opened fire.
The car collided with a bus. Personnel in a World Health Organization convoy traveling behind the IOM vehicles treated three injured and took the Iraqi driver to a hospital, where he died, said Omer Mekki, the WHO deputy director in Iraq.
Both convoys were clearly marked as U.N. vehicles.
"We're a bit shaken. Everybody is a bit shocked," said Mekki. "But when we were recruited and we came to Iraq, we knew there were risks. An incident like this is not unexpected.
Ahmed Fawzi, spokesman for the special representative of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, denounced the attack.
"The United Nations is in Iraq to help the Iraqi people. We are not taking sides," he said in Baghdad.
Food program attacked
The U.N. World Food Program was targeted in a July 6 grenade attack in Mosul, and four days later, the agency issued a release citing concern over the security situation in Iraq.
U.N. special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello left Iraq on Sunday. He is to report to the U.N. Security council on Tuesday, when a delegation from Iraq's U.S.-picked Governing Council was expected to visit the world body.
The council, the first civilian group organized to eventually take control of the country, had said the group planned to declare itself the sovereign representative of Iraq at the United Nations.
British intelligence
In London, a judge investigating the suicide of a Defense Ministry weapons adviser should also examine the British government's use of intelligence to justify war with Iraq, opposition legislators said today.
Microbiologist David Kelly was the source for a disputed British Broadcasting Corp. report citing claims that Prime Minister Tony Blair's office doctored an intelligence dossier on Iraqi weapons to bolster the case for war. On Friday, Kelly's body was found near his home in central England. One of his wrists had been slashed.
Lord Hutton, one of the Law Lords who form Britain's highest court of appeal, said today his inquiry into the suicide would investigate the "circumstances surrounding the death of Dr. Kelly."
"It will be for me to decide, as I think right within my terms of reference, the matters which should be the subject of my investigation," Hutton said, without elaborating.
It was unclear whether Hutton intended to meet demands for a broader inquiry into the government's handling of intelligence on Iraqi weapons.
Blair has said he is prepared to testify before Hutton's investigation, but he suggested today the scope would be limited to Kelly's death.
"This is a very exceptional situation, which is why we decided to hold a judicial inquiry, because of the concern that there was," he said during a trip to China. "Of course, there will be continuing debate as to whether the war was justified or not. I happen to believe it was."
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