A US contractor was killed in Iraq while at least three US soldiers and a trio of Iraqi policemen were wounded in a separate rocket-propelled grenade attack, dealing further severe blows to reconstruction efforts in the country. The American citizen, employee of Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), contracted by the army was killed when his vehicle ran over an explosive device near Tikrit. KBR, a unit of oil giant Halliburton, formerly run by US vice-president Dick Cheney, has been contracted by the Army Corps of Engineers to repair and operate oil wells in Iraq. **New Attacks on Occupation Troops*** The three US soldiers and three Iraqi police officers were cut down in an RPG attack against the police station in Fallujah west of Baghdad, an AFP reported. "Three soldiers were hit, and three policemen were injured," police officer Mohammed Abdel Zaki, who was in the station when it was attacked, told AFP. Zaki said he believed two of the Americans were killed, but US military didn't confirm the casualties. **US Investigates Fatal Pneumonia Cases in Iraq*** Fighting against daily attacks and flagging morale, the US military mission in Iraq has taken another turn for the worse. A team of medical experts has arrived in the country to investigate a mysterious outbreak of pneumonia among troops that has already claimed two lives and struck down more than a hundred others since the beginning of March. Among the 100 or so cases, 15 have been serious enough to warrant medical evacuation to Germany. Of those, ten recovered but three remain hospitalised - giving US army surgeons much cause for alarm. It is hard not to draw comparisons with the Gulf War syndrome suffered by close to 25,000 American, British and French troops after the 1991 conflict in Iraq. Then, as now, medical officials said there was no indication that any of the cases were caused by exposure to environmental toxins, SARS or chemical or biological weapons. Victims of Gulf War syndrome displayed completly different symptoms. However, more than a decade on, there still remains much debate over its causes as well as the syndrome's actual existence. In this case, medical teams will again be looking for similarities among the soldiers who have come from different units at different times in geographically dispersed areas. **PHOTO CAPTION*** A U.S. Army soldier is taken away for medical evacuation after a remote controlled explosive device hit his vehicle in the city of Tikrit, about 180 km northwest of Baghdad, Iraq on Saturday Aug. 2, 2003. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)