Echo Co, 2/1: 'Wounded in body but never our spirit, will or resolve'

[thedrifter]

Echo Co, 2/1: 'Wounded in body but never our spirit, will or resolve' <br />
Submitted by: 1st Marine Division <br />
Story Identification #: 200461154244 <br />
Story by Gunnery Sgt. Claudia LaMantia <br />
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CAMP...

[thedrifter]

General sees Marines as big help to success in Iraq
June 11,2004
ERIC STEINKOPFF
DAILY NEWS STAFF

Even though retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, has voiced criticism of U.S. policies in post-war Iraq, he said Thursday there's still hope for the region.

Zinni, former commander of U.S. Central Command, said that although it would be good to have more American troops in Iraq, the Marines' ability to adapt and their reliance on small-unit leaders are some of their greatest assets.

"There are really two sides to this - the strategic policy and the sergeants and corporals at the scene," Zinni told a standing room only crowd of Marines and sailors at the Camp Lejeune base theater Thursday. "All of the people in between - including the generals - don't matter as much."

Zinni, who co-wrote the book "Battle Ready" with Tom Clancy, said that with embedded media the generals are no longer the source of information to the world and with a global media every mistake is transmitted around the world in an instant.

"A bad decision at a checkpoint or a prisoner interrogation could lose it all," Zinni said. "The truth is somewhere between Fox News and Al Jazeera."

He warned the troops that the Iraqis would feel caught in the middle between insurgents and the coalition forces, leaving the Marines with the feeling that the locals did not appreciate what they were doing.

The effort to fight the insurgents and terrorism will take years to complete, and Camp Lejeune units should prepare themselves for repeat deployments, Zinni said.

"You're probably going to fight this for another five to 10 years, but it will go away like communism," Zinni said. "But every democracy is different. I think that years from now, you'll see a form of democracy that suits Iraq."

Contact Eric Steinkopff at esteinkopff@jdnews.com or 353-1171, Ext. 236.


http://www.jdnews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=23272&Section=News


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Comrades in arms <br />
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By JOEL GAY <br />
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Anchorage Daily News <br />
ANCHORAGE--Mariano Peters and Ian Mitchell grew up worlds apart, in Togiak and Fairbanks. But a chance encounter and the Marine Corps bound...

[thedrifter]

Muqtada Militia Attacks U.S. Soldiers, More Weapons Found
Submitted by: American Forces Press Service
Story Identification #: 200461072533
Story by - American Forces Press Service Staff



WASHINGTON(June 3, 2004) -- Task Force 1st Armored Division soldiers were attacked today during a search of a school near Kufa, suspected site of several recent mortar attacks, according to a Central Commands news release.

While approaching the school, soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 37th Armor
Regiment, were fired upon with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms, the release stated. Soldiers returned fire, killing a 'significant number' of attackers. Three soldiers were wounded, the news release said.

A search of the school yielded two 82 mm mortar tubes, a 120 mm mortar tube, two RPG launchers with RPGs, a light anti-tank weapon, several AK-47 assault rifles, 10 hand grenades, 40 60 mm mortar rounds, and 20 120 mm mortar rounds.

The latest weapons find was one of several this week by U.S. soldiers.

Soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division discovered two weapons caches in Tikrit
June 1, adding to six caches found over the Memorial Day weekend.

According to CENTCOM news release, soldiers discovered more than 60 artillery rounds under a bridge near Bayji June 1. Later that day, they stopped a dump truck carrying 137 artillery rounds.

An explosive ordnance disposal team destroyed a portion of the rounds found at the bridge and transported the remainder to a coalition facility for destruction.

Munitions on board the dump truck were transported to a coalition facility for destruction and the driver was detained.

Division soldiers detained 60 suspected weapons smugglers and confiscated 1,650 artillery rounds hidden in nine trucks near Samarra May 31.

The suspects were taken to a coalition detention facility for questioning and the weapons were taken to a Coalition base for destruction.

In all, over the Memorial Day weekend, soldiers discovered six caches near Mansuriyah, Baqubah, Tikrit and Balad, according to CENTCOM officials.

The weekend weapons caches contained more than 400 artillery rounds, 101 anti- aircraft rounds, 57 mortar rounds, 47 rocket-propelled grenades, a RPG launcher, a machine gun and other munitions.

In related news, coalition forces have begun using a new hand-carried device called Vapor Tracer 2 to detect and identify vapors and particles produced by explosives and narcotics.

The detection system is currently being used in civilian airports throughout the United States to check people, baggage, vehicles and cargo for explosive substances.

Vapor Tracer 2 uses an atmospheric sampling technique that is extremely sensitive and fast.

Soldiers from Troop F, 9th Cavalry Regiment, used the Vapor Tracer 2 earlier in May on a mission to find a suspected cache of explosives.

The Vapor Tracer 2 is now being used at checkpoints around the coalition's central Baghdad "Green Zone."

Elsewhere in Iraq, coalition forces throughout the country are continuing with rebuilding efforts.

In Ramadi, Marines paid Kharma city officials $19,000 in initial payments for projects to improve the city's infrastructure and other programs.

Improvement projects include a $21,500 project to improve electrical power distribution, a $23,500 project to install billboards and flagpoles, and $2,500 to fund clean-up initiatives.

Marines also provided $7,000 in start-up funds for a soccer and handball in Fallujah.

In Baghdad, the 5th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division , is working to repair faulty sewage facilities in the district of Rashid.

Over the next 12 to 18 months, the team plans to help the people of the district to overhaul the neglected sewage system there.

The plan calls for building new sewer lines to areas that never had service. In these areas, raw sewage currently runs from homes into open canals that pass through the center of town.

According to the news statement, the Coalition Provisional Authority has approved $40 million for the project. Iraqi contractors will do most of the work with oversight from the combat team and an American contractor, the release stated.

In addition, the unit is working on projects to solve the area's lack of trash- collection facilities, and will contract local Iraqi companies to clean manholes, fix broken lines and get substations running at 100 percent capacity.


http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/FDD126B7D57426B585256EAF003EC3B5?opendocument


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines are ready to roll <br />
Submitted by: MCB Camp Pendleton <br />
Story Identification #: 200461014198 <br />
Story by Cpl. Paula M. Fitzgerald <br />
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MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif.(June 10, 2004) --...

[thedrifter]

Hawaiian native hits desert for a third time <br />
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Submitted by: Marine Forces Pacific <br />
Story Identification #: 20046916114 <br />
Story by Lance Cpl. Jared Plotts <br />
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U.S. MARINE CORPS FORCES PACIFIC,...

[thedrifter]

Good News from a War Zone
Chuck Colson


June 10, 2004

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of the steady drumbeat of bad news and defeatism from Iraq. The truth of the matter is that this has never been justified, and it’s certainly not justified this week.

On Tuesday the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution supporting the end of the occupation of Iraq on June 30, transferring sovereignty to the Iraqi interim government, and authorizing the U.S.role providing security—a huge victory. This vote came on the heels of Monday’s announcement that nine of the independent Iraqi militias agreed to disband. This is good news, but just part of a pattern of good news that simply hasn’t been prominently reported.

The press coverage of Iraq reminds me of when I was a kid during World War II. The Allied campaign in Italy, for example, was going off the track, and everybody was wringing their hands that we were losing the war. And after D-Day, sixty years ago this month, American forces were bogged down at the Battle of the Bulge during the winter of 1944. Remember the American general’s famous response when the Nazis told him to surrender? One word: “Nuts.” Sure, things were uncertain and messy, and there was plenty of talk about the gloomy state of the war.

The fact is, you see, that uncertainty and mess are unavoidable elements of war, but if that’s all you hear, you begin to think the sky is falling. And that’s what has been happening in Iraq. But as Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard writes, “To share the Iraq-is-lost sentiment, one must ignore a spate of good news.”

For example, while there is trouble in the Sunni Triangle, Victor Davis Hanson notes that in Kurdistan, the northern third of Iraq, “seven million people live under humane government with less than 300 American troops.”

Add to that the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. It’s a balance between the ethnic, regional, and tribal groups—a balance many thought would be impossible to achieve.

As the interim government takes control on June 30, Iraq gets a bill of rights, and the first Arab democracy in the Middle East will be born with elections seven months later.

Addressing the Iraqi people, Allawi said, “Targeting the multinational forces, led by the United States, to force them out of Iraq, would be a catastrophe for Iraq. . . ”

And there’s more. First, in Iran an emerging middle class is becoming increasingly restless and wants democracy. Pressures will build for democracy with our successes in Iraq. Second, apart from Spain, major terrorist attacks have been confined to the Middle East . Third, Libyahas discontinued its nuclear program. To sum it up, when I had lunch with Ehud Olmert, Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, he told me that things were changing dramatically throughout the region precisely because of the U.S. presence in Iraq.

Will things continue to be uncertain and messy? Sure—this is war. As Hanson writes, “Anyone who thinks thousands of Islamic fascists and out-of-work Baathists won’t want to stop the region’s first consensual government is unhinged. But, again,” he adds, “for all our mistakes of omission there was and is a plan—and it is now slowly coming to messy fruition.”

But the big question is: Is our effort in Iraq morally justified? Indeed it is. And it’s the front line of our war against terror.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/chuckcolson/cc20040610.shtml


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Iraq cleric 'calls for new start'

Radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has reportedly backed for the first time US moves to gradually hand powers over to an interim Iraqi government.
The change of heart came in a sermon at Friday prayers in the town of Kufa, two weeks after the government was formed.

Mr Sadr, a firebrand whose militia has fought US forces since March, called for a new start and an end to conflict, according to witnesses.

But his supporters clashed with members of a pro-US faction in nearby Najaf.

Stones and shoes were thrown in the clash at the shrine of Imam Ali leaving several people injured and forcing the cancellation of Friday prayers.


Mr Sadr called upon the interim government to work to end the occupation according to a timetable set by Iraqi officials, reported a correspondent for Voice of Mujahidin radio present at the sermon.

Mr Sadr added that the formation of the government was a good opportunity to bury past differences and "forge ahead toward the building of a unified Iraq".

There has not been any official reaction to Mr Sadr's conciliatory speech in Kufa, where he delivers fiery Friday sermons at the main mosque every week.

The US-led coalition accuses him of killing Abdul Majid al-Khoei, a moderate Shia leader shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Najaf battles

Hopes of bringing an end to the conflict with Mr Sadr's faction were not improved on Friday, when scuffles forced the closure of the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf for the first time during weekly congregational prayers since the US-led invasion in 2003.

On Wednesday night and Thursday Mr Sadr's followers had clashed with Iraqi police in Najaf - less than a week after police began patrols under a truce between the militia and US troops.

At least six people were killed in the fighting, including police officers, militants and two civilians. Another 29 people were injured, including children.

On Friday morning hundreds of supporters of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) marched towards the Imam Ali Shrine to express support for the truce.

Sadr supporters blocked their way, and fistfights broke out and missiles were thrown.

One top Sciri official was reportedly wounded in the head during the confrontation.

The area surrounding the sacred compound is still controlled by Sadr militiamen despite the week-old truce under which they have withdrawn from the rest of the city.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3799371.stm


Ellie