Arlen Specter: “I was alarmed over the past weekend to note the suicide bombing which was perpetrated on Saturday where four United…”

“I was alarmed over the past weekend to note the suicide bombing which was perpetrated on Saturday where four United States soldiers in the 3rd Infantry Division were murdered by a suicide car bomb, with a bomber driving a taxi filled with explosives to a highway checkpoint in central Iraq. This is the first such attack on American troops in this war, a war in which Iraqi forces have been accused of dressing as civilians and employing so-called human shields. In an interview which appeared on ABC Television on Sunday, March 30th, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz stated that this was to be the policy of Iraq. This statement was in response to a question by ABC News correspondent Richard Engel, a question related to the comment by the Vice President of Iraq the preceding day, Saturday, March 29th, and then again by a Defense Ministry spokesman on March 30th, that Iraq is 'welcoming the use of [such] suicide attacks.' I am today introducing a resolution which condemns this practice as a war crime, to put the government of Iraq on notice that the United States, Great Britain, and coalition forces will be prosecuting these atrocities as war crimes.”