Not content with shooting policemen and civilians in Iraq, drunken GIs wandered into the Baghdad zoo and killed an endangered species.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. soldier shot and killed a tiger at the Baghdad zoo after it bit another soldier who had reached through the bars of its cage to feed it, a zoo security guard said Saturday.

The soldiers had been drinking beer when they entered the zoo Thursday night after it closed, said the guard, Zuhair Abdul-Majeed.

"He was drunk," Abdul-Majeed said of the bitten soldier.

After the man was bit, the other American shot the tiger three times in the head and killed it, Abdul-Majeed told The Associated Press.

A completely unrelated note: I'm really amazed at the lack of flowers being thrown at the feet of our soldiers. With what Cheney and Rumsfeld said, I though that the flood of flower petals would be a major problem for our occupying liberating troops.