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Show World&Nation Page 11 Monday, Oct. I, 2007 U.S. and Iraqi forces kill more than 60 insurgents; U.S. Embassy criticizes Senate IRAQIS CHANT ANTI-AMERICAN SLOGANS while mutilated bodies of U.S. contractors hang from a bridge over the Euphrates River in Fallujah. west of Baghdad, in this March 31,2004 file photo. AP Photo BAGHDAD (AP)-U.S. and Iraqi forces killed more than 60 insurgent and militia fighters in intense battles over the weekend, with most of the casualties believed to have been al-Qaida fighters, officials said Sunday. The U.S. Embassy, meanwhile, joined a broad swath of Iraqi politicians — both Shiite and Sunni — in criticizing a nonbinding U.S. Senate resolution seen here as a recipe for splitting the country along sectarian and ethnic lines. The U.S. military also announced the death of an American soldier killed Saturday in a roadside bombing and gunfire attack in eastern Baghdad. There were 62 U.S. military deaths in September, the lowest monthly toll since July 2006 when 43 American soldiers were killed, according to a preliminary Associated Press tally. U.S. aircraft killed more than 20 al-Qaida in Iraq fighters who opened fire on an American air patrol northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. command said. The firefight between U.S. aircraft and the insurgent fighters occurred Saturday about 17 miles northwest of the capital, the military said. The aircraft observed about 25 al-Qaida insurgents carrying AK47 assault rifles — one brandishing a rocket-propelled grenade — walking into a palm grove, the military said. "Shortly after spotting the men, the aircraft were fired upon by the insurgent fighters," it said. The military did not say what kind of aircraft were involved but the fact that the fighters opened fire suggests they were low-flying Apache helicopters. The command said more than 20 of the group were killed and four vehicles were destroyed. No Iraqi civilians or U.S. soldiers were hurt. "Coalition forces have dealt significant blows to Al-Qaida Iraq in recent months, including the recent killing of the Tunisian head of the foreign fighter network in Iraq and the blows struck in the past 24 hours," military spokesman Col. Steven Boylan told The Associated Press. Iraq's Defense Ministry said in an e-mail Sunday afternoon that Iraqi soldiers had killed 44 "ter- rorists" over the past 24 hours. The operations were centered in Salahuddin and Diyala provinces and around the city of Kirkuk, where the ministry said its soldiers had killed 40 and arrested eight. It said 52 fighters were arrested altogether. The ministry did not further identify those killed, but use of the word "terrorists" normally indicates al-Qaida. In a separate operation, U.S. forces killed two insurgents and detained 21 others during weekend operations against al-Qaida. Intelligence led to a raid early Sunday that netted what the U.S. military called 15 rogue members of the Mahdi Army militia at an undisclosed Baghdad location. The mainstream of the militia, the armed wing of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's organization, has been ordered by the religious leader to stop attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces. But many one-time members of the group have split off and are acting independently of al-Sadr's control. Some have gone to Iran for training and are receiving weapons and financing from the Islamic regime in Tehran. The Senate resolution, adopted last week, proposed reshaping Iraq according to three sectarian or ethnic territories. It calls for a limited central government with the bulk of power going to the country's Shiite, Sunni or Kurdish regions, envisioning a power-sharing agreement similar to the one that ended the 1990s war in Bosnia. Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democrat presidential candidate, was a prime sponsor. In a highly unusual statement, the U.S. Embassy said resolution would seriously hamper Iraq's future stability. "Our goal in Iraq remains the same: a united, democratic, federal Iraq that can govern, defend, and sustain itself," the unsigned statement said. "Iraq's leaders must and will take the lead in determining how to achieve these national aspirations. ... attempts to partition or divide Iraq by intimidation, force or other means into three separate states would produce extraordinary suffering and bloodshed," it said. The statement came just hours after representatives of Iraq's major political parties denounced the Senate proposal. The Kurds in three northern Iraqi provinces are running a virtually independent country within Iraq while nominally maintaining relations with Baghdad. They support a formal division, but both Sunni and Shiite Muslims have denounced the proposal. At a news conference earlier in the day, at least nine Iraqi political parties and party blocs - both Shiite and Sunni - said the Senate resolution would diminish Iraq's sovereignty and said they would try to pass a law to ban any division of the country. "This proposal was based on the incorrect reading and unrealistic estimations of Iraq's past, present and future," according to a statement read at a news con- Speak U p "Our goal in Iraq remains the same: a united nation, democratic, fed' eral Iraq that can govern, defend and sustain itself." Unsigned statement by the US. Embassy ference by Izzat al-Shahbandar, a representative of the secular Iraqi National List. Iraq's constitution lays down a federal system, allowing Shiites in the south, Kurds in the north and Sunnis in the center and west of the country to set up regions with considerable autonomous powers. Nevertheless, ethnic and sectarian turmoil have snarled hopes of negotiating such measures, especially given deep divisions on sharing the country's vast oil resources. Oil reserves and existing fields would fall mainly into the hands of Kurds and Shiites if such a division were to occur. Also Sunday, a judge delayed court proceedings for a second U.S. Army sniper accused in the deaths of two unarmed Iraqi civilians. Mistakenly armed A B-52 bomber loaded with six nuclear warheads flew for more than three hours over several states last week. Possible flight path MinotAir Force Base Barksdale Air Force Base BORIS C H E R T O K speaks to reporters in Moscow, Friday, Sept. 21. Chertok, 95. was one of the founders of the Soviet space program and he played a key role in the Sputnik's launch on Oct. 4, 1957. AP Photo Sputnik at 50: first space race won with scrounged rocket, improvised satellite MOSCOW (AP)-When Sputnik took off 50 years ago, the world gazed at the heavens in awe and apprehension, watching what seemed like the unveiling of a sustained Soviet effort to conquer space and score a stunning Cold War triumph. But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a wellplanned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in space was a spurof-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age. And that winking light that crowds around the globe gathered to watch in the night sky? Not Sputnik at all, as it turns out, but just the second stage of its booster rocket, according to Boris Chertok, one of the founders of the Soviet space program. In a series of interviews in recent days with The Associated Press, Chertok and other veterans told the little-known story of how Sputnik was launched, and what an unlikely achievement it turned out to be. Chertok couldn't whisper a word about the project through much of his lifetime. His name, and that of Sergei Korolyov, the chief scientist, were a state secret. Today, at age 95 and talking to a small group of reporters in Moscow, Chertok can finally give full voice to his pride at the pivotal role he played in the history of space exploration. "Each of these first rockets was like a beloved woman for us," he said. "We were in love with every rocket, we desperately wanted it to blast off successfully. We would give our hearts and souls to see it flying." This very rational exuberance, and Korolyov's determination, were the key to Sputnik's success. So was happenstance. As described by the former scientists, the world's first orbiter was born out of a very different Soviet program: the frantic development of a rocket capable of striking the United States with a hydrogen bomb. Because there was no telling how heavy the warhead would be, its R-7 ballistic missile was built with thrust to spare — "much more powerful than anything the Americans had," Georgy Grechko, a rocket engineer and cosmonaut, told AP. The towering R-7's high thrust and payload capacity, unmatched at the time, just happened to make it the perfect vehicle to launch an object into orbit — something never done before. Without the looming nuclear threat, Russian scientists say, Sputnik would probably have gotten off the ground much later. 6-nation talks on North Korean nuclear program reach tentative plan, envoys say BEIJING (AP) - Negotiators at North Korea's disarmament talks tentatively agreed to a draft plan Sunday on disabling the country's nuclear facilities by year's end, though they said the detailed blueprint required further consideration by their governments. The four days of talks, which began on an optimistic note after North Korea earlier agreed to a Dec. 31 deadline, were supposed to set specifics for the disabling, among other issues. Envoys described the talks as being in recess, with host China saying that they may reconvene in 48 hours depending on what the six governments — China, the United States, Japan, Russia and North and South Koreas — decide. The draft "lays out an entire roadmap until the end of the year" for the North's nuclear disarmament, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters before boarding a plane for New York. "We're into the nuts and bolts now of implementing denuclearization," Hill said. He We Fit Your Needs said the level of detail, which he declined to discuss, made it necessary for him to return to Washington for consultations. South Korean envoy Chun Yungwoo said the proposed blueprint set some deadlines for North Korea and for the other parties to meet. The six country are pushing forward a February agreement under which communist, impoverished North Korea agreed to declare and dismantle all its nuclear programs in return for 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or other assistance. Under that deal, the terms for the North's declaration and the dismantling should have been agreed upon five months ago. Talks have dragged on for four years but if ultimately successful would roll back a nuclear program that a year ago allowed North Korea to detonate a nuclear device and that experts say may have produced more than a dozen nuclear bombs. Agreement on the blueprint would be a boost for South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun ahead of a rare summit this week with North Korean leader Kim Jong 11. In his efforts to promote rapprochement with the North, Roh has sometimes appeared to be out of step with South Korean ally, the United States. "Many countries exerted the spirit of compromise. In particular. North Korea made many concessions," South Korea's Chun told reporters. Under terms in the draft, North Korea reiterated its Dec. 31 deadline for declaring and disabling its nuclear programs and accepted that other parties would not be able to deliver all aid within that time, Chun said. 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