An Army staff sergeant with ties to Maine was killed in combat Friday in Iraq, making him the state's first known military death of 2007.
Staff Sgt. Eric Ross, 26, died as a result of combat operations in Baqubah, Iraq, Gov. John Baldacci said Saturday night. The area is about 30 miles northeast of Baghdad, in Iraq's so-called Sunni triangle.
Born in Maine, Ross was assigned to B Company, 1-12 Combined Arms Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, of the 1st Cavalry Division. His parents reside in East Corinth and Levant.
The governor talked with Ross' mother and father Saturday night and expressed his deep sorrow.
''Staff Sgt. Ross is a hero. He has left his friends and family too soon,'' Baldacci said. ''We are all thankful for his dedication, and mourn his sacrifice. His actions and commitment will be remembered.''
Ross is survived by his wife, two children and his parents. No funeral arrangements have been made public at this time, and no further information is currently available, Badacci said.
The U.S. military announced Saturday that three American soldiers had died in an explosion in volatile Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, according to the Associated Press.
The blast occurred as Task Force Lightning soldiers searched for a weapons cache near Baqouba.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have battled Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias in Diyala for months.
The deaths raised to 36 the number of Americans killed in Iraq so far this month. At least 3,120 members have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The governor will order flags to be lowered to half staff on the day of the funeral..
National security adviser Stephen Hadley recently said some Iran material was overstated. Privately, officials say they want to avoid the kind of gaffe akin to former Secretary of State Colin Powell's case for war before the United Nations in 2003.
''My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions,'' Powell said as he laid out unproven claims of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. ''What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.'' It later turned out that Iraq did not have such weapons.
The evidence on Iran is intended to give backbone to the administration's claim that an emboldened Iran is playing a dangerous game across the Middle East: meddling in conflicts and seeding terrorism beyond its borders while rushing to acquire nuclear know-how that could produce a bomb.
Government officials familiar with the dossier's documents and slides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the materials still were classified, said they make a compelling case.
Among the evidence the administration planned to present are weapons that were seized over time in U.S.-led raids on caches around Iraq, said one military official. Other evidence includes documents captured when U.S.-led forces raided an Iranian office Jan. 11 in Irbil, a city in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq about 220 miles north of Baghdad, this official said.
In that raid, the U.S. captured five Iranians. They included the operations chief and other members of Iran's elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants. Tehran said it was a government liaison office and called for the release of the five, along with compensation for damages.
The dossier also details Iran's role in providing Iraqi fighters with the ''explosively formed penetrator'' devices that can pierce the armor of Abrams tanks with nearly molten-hot charges. One intelligence official said the U.S. is ''fairly comfortable'' that it knows with some precision the origin of those Iranian-made explosives.
While traveling in Europe on Friday, Gates said serial numbers and markings on explosives used...
Reader comments
Click here to view or add comments on this story
Were you interviewed for this story? If so, please fill out our accuracy form