(http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/114683,CST-NWS-iraq28.article)
October 28, 2006
LANCASTER, N.H. -- Republican Sen. John McCain, a possible 2008 presidential candidate, said Friday the United States should send another 20,000 troops to Iraq.
A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCain said increasing U.S. forces would require expanding the standing Army and Marine Corps -- a step the Bush administration has resisted.
United front in Baghdad
Meanwhile in Baghdad, the American ambassador and Iraqi prime minister issued a rare joint statement Friday in which Iraq reaffirmed its commitment to a ''good and strong'' relationship with the United States -- a bid to dampen speculation about souring ties less than two weeks before U.S. midterm elections.
The U.S. military announced a soldier died in Diyala, raising to 97 American forces killed in October.
Baghdad's calm held into a fifth day, as U.S. troops continued combing neighborhoods for a kidnapped American soldier, whose Iraqi family Friday issued a plea for mercy.
The U.S. military declined to confirm the identity of the kidnapped soldier, but Sharqiyah TV said he was Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, a naturalized American born in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Army arraigned a 101st Airborne Division soldier Friday charged with the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and three others in March in Mahmoudiya. Pfc. Bryan Howard deferred entering a plea at Fort Campbell, Ky.
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