The Washington Post reports this today:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that he has "no reason to believe" that senior leaders of Saddam Hussein's government, including the ousted Iraqi president or his sons, were killed last week when U.S. forces attacked a convoy in western Iraq along the Syrian border.

Whoops!

Oh -- sorry we bombed your house, folks!

And I hate to tell you, but we may bomb it again:

The Bush administration sent a diplomat to Damascus Monday to assure the Syrian government that the wounded border guards were in satisfactory condition and would be returned safely, said an administration official, who added that the U.S. Central Command has pledged to fly them back to Syria.

But the tone of U.S. envoy Elizabeth L. Dibble's meeting with the Syrians "was not apologetic," the official said. Rather, the Syrians were informed that the United States felt justified in chasing the Iraqi vehicles and expects Syrian authorities to halt such convoys from crossing the border in the future.

"Regret was expressed, but not apology," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "This was hot pursuit. They made clear to the Syrians that we're going to have to take action from time to time to capture members of the former regime. What was made clear was that, should there be a situation like this in the future, we would expect their cooperation."

This New York Times story summarizes some of the intelligence reports the U.S. has received about this border area, reports U.S. officials clearly take seriously. The story suggests that the U.S. military is going to be in this area for a while.

(Isn't chasing the enemy across the border how we expanded the Vietnam War into Cambodia?)