US troops who criticized Iraq War killed in Baghdad

Two US soldiers who helped write a critique from the front saying the US had "failed on every promise" in the war have been killed in Iraq, it was reported on Sept. 12. Staff Sergeant Yance Gray, 26, and Sergeant Omar Mora, 28, were among a group of seven soldiers serving in Iraq who wrote a piece excoriating America's conduct of the war. The piece was published in the New York Times last month. The men were killed in Baghdad when the cargo truck in which they were riding rolled over, the Associated Press and local news outlets reported. The criticism caused a flurry of public debate because of the candor with which the men, all serving in the 82nd Airborne, described the situation in Iraq. There was also speculation they could face severe penalties for being so openly critical of the war. Another US soldier, Private Scott Beauchamp, who wrote a shocking account in New Republic magazine about a soldier treating a piece of a child's skull as a souvenir, had his mobile phone and laptop confiscated. "Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise," the seven wrote. "When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages." The peril of service in Iraq was underlined during the course of writing the article: one of the co-authors, a Ranger, was shot in the head and flown to the US for treatment. The men directly challenged official claims of progress in the war, calling the debate in Washington "surreal."