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McCain: Iraq strategy working

BAGHDAD - After a heavily guarded trip to a Baghdad market, Sen. John McCain insisted yesterday that a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in the capital was working, and said Americans lacked a "full picture" of the progress. The U.S. military later reported that six soldiers were killed in roadside bombings southwest of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD - After a heavily guarded trip to a Baghdad market, Sen. John McCain insisted yesterday that a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in the capital was working, and said Americans lacked a "full picture" of the progress. The U.S. military later reported that six soldiers were killed in roadside bombings southwest of Baghdad.

Four soldiers were killed responding to the blast that killed the first two, the military said. Britain, meanwhile, announced that one of its soldiers had been shot to death in southern Iraq - its 104th combat casualty since the war started four years ago.

McCain, a Republican presidential candidate who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, acknowledged that a difficult task lay ahead in Iraq, but he criticized the news media for not giving Americans enough information about the recent drop in execution-style sectarian killings, the establishment of security posts throughout the city, and Sunni tribal efforts against al-Qaeda in the western province of Anbar.

"These and other indicators are reason for cautious, very cautious optimism about the effects of the new strategy," said McCain, who was leading a Republican congressional delegation to Iraq that included Sen. Lindsey Graham.

McCain was combative during the news conference, refusing to respond to a question about whether the United States had plans to attack Iran. He also replied testily to a question about remarks he had made in the United States last week that it was safe to walk some Baghdad streets.

"Things are better, and there are encouraging signs," he said. "I've been here . . . many times over the years. Never have I been able to drive from the airport, never have I been able go out into the city, as I was today.

"I'm not saying 'mission accomplished,' 'last throes,' 'dead-enders,' or any of that," he said. "I believe that the signs are encouraging, but please don't interpret one comment of mine in any way to indicate that this isn't a long, difficult struggle."

Members of the delegation spoke at a Green Zone news conference after they rode from Baghdad's airport in armored vehicles under heavy guard to visit the city's largest market, which has been hit by bombings including a February attack that killed 137 people. They said the trips were proof that security was improving in the capital. Prominent visitors normally travel from the airport to the city center by helicopter.

The lawmakers, who wore body armor during their hour-long shopping excursion, said they were impressed with the resilience and warmth of the Iraqis, some of whom would not take money for their souvenirs. They were accompanied by the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.

While the capital has seen a dip in violence as extra U.S. and Iraqi troops have flooded the streets, an Iraqi military spokesman said militants fleeing the crackdown have made areas outside the capital "breeding grounds for violence," spreading bombings and sectarian attacks to areas once relatively untouched.

The names of the slain U.S. soldiers were not given, and the military did not give an exact location of the attacks, saying only that they occurred southwest of the capital. The military indicated that the first attack was Saturday before midnight and the second was early yesterday.

A Marine serving in Anbar province also died in a "noncombat-related incident," the military said, raising to at least 3,253 the number of U.S. service members who have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, the Iraqi military spokesman, promised that recent attacks would not derail the neighborhood sweeps that began in Baghdad Feb. 14.

More than 600 Iraqis have been killed in sectarian violence since March 25, most in a series of high-profile suicide bombings. Among them were at least 152 killed in a bombing in Tal Afar - the deadliest single strike since the war began. Shiites, including police, went on a revenge shooting rampage afterward, killing at least 45 Sunni men.

In the latest Iraqi violence, a bomb hit a popular market in Tuz Khormato, 130 miles north of Baghdad, yesterday, killing three people and wounding four. Suicide bombers struck an Iraqi army headquarters in Mosul, killing at least two people.