Marines and Iraqi Special Forces team up for a showdown

[thedrifter]

Marines and Iraqi Special Forces team up for a showdown
Submitted by: 1st Marine Division
Story Identification #: 2004823209
Story by Cpl. Veronika R. Tuskowski



CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, Iraq (Aug. 22, 2004) -- Marines with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, teamed up with Iraqi Special Forces for the first time ever in Operation Showdown Aug. 18, to search for weapons caches and terrorists in Ar Ramadi.

A platoon of Iraqi Special forces from the Iraqi National Guard, commonly referred to as "Showanis," were divided up between each Marine squad in Company E and G.

"It was an awesome opportunity," said Capt. Kelly Royer, Company E's commanding officer. "It was the first time we actually got to do a joint operation in the five and a half months that we have been here. I was extremely impressed with their performance."

They set out early in the morning to secure a large area in Ar Ramadi, alongside elements from the Army's 1st Brigade Combat Team. After the area was secured, they began to sweep for weapons and enemy insurgents who have been linked to many attacks in the city.

"We have been frequently getting mortared from somebody in that area we swept today," said Staff Sgt. Joseph M. Martin, Company E's platoon sergeant. "If we take their ammo away from them, they have nothing to shoot at us."

Since it was the first time the Showanis were able to participate in an operation like this here, the Marines showed them how to search a house and look for illegal weapons.

"We conducted some rehearsals and training with them yesterday prior to the operation," Martin said. "And when we took them out today we were like a big brother. We showed them how we do things and what works for us, and how it will probably work for them too."

The Marines and Iraqis discovered several weapons caches, including a crate buried in the ground containing 18 AK-47s, nine RPK machine guns and three improvised explosive devices.

"Echo Company also found, buried in a barn, a 160 mm mortar, three 3.5 inch rockets, one PG9 anti-tank rocket, and fifty fuses for the 160 mm mortar," Royer added. "They all looked like they have been rigged as improvised explosive devices."

Many of the Ar Ramadi citizens felt more comfortable having another Iraqi search their homes, and were thankful for the Showanis presence.

"It's easier to have someone with us that speaks the lingo, and doesn't have the language barrier that we do," explained Sgt. Jose N. Vasquez, squad leader. "While we (Marines) searched the house, they would talk to the head of the household and ask them right away if they had any illegal contraband and the household felt more inclined to bring us what ever they had. It made our jobs a lot easier."

Another benefit of including Iraqi forces on the operation was that Ar Ramadi citizens got to see an Iraqi face on the country's security force.

"The main concern for the Iraqi people is to see the Iraqi Civil Defense Forces take over Iraq," said Habib Mtanious, a translator on the operation. "The people appreciate what the U.S. has done for them, but in the end they want the Iraqi forces to control Iraq."

The Marines with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment feel confident in the Showanis' abilities and plan to involve them with their operations in the future.

"It was good to work with an Iraqi Force," Vasquez said. "It makes our job a lot easier when we work with them. These guys had a lot of heart and showed a lot of courage today. We look forward to working with them in the future."

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/200482321240/$file/SHOWDOWN4lr.jpg

A Marine with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, provides security for his fellow Marines on a rooftop during Operation Showdown in Ar Ramadi, Aug. 18.
(USMC photo by Cpl. Veronika Tuskowski) Photo by: Cpl. Veronika R. Tuskowski


http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/20048232332/$file/SHOWDOWN1lr.jpg

Marines with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment team up with a member of the Iraqi Special Forces to sweep the city of Ar Ramadi for enemy fighters and illegal weapons, Aug. 18.
(USMC Photo by Cpl. Veronika R. Tuskowski) Photo by: Cpl. Veronika R. Tuskowski

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/75089B610336D03D85256EF90020F942?opendocument


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Bound for Iraq
August 24,2004
ERIC STEINKOPFF
DAILY NEWS STAFF

About 160 Marines and sailors left Camp Lejeune for Iraq on Monday, bringing to roughly 250 the number in this latest deployment from 2nd Force Service Support Group.

Moms, dads, wives and husbands tried to hold back tears as they faced the reality of their loved ones going into harm's way. Children, too young to fully understand the gravity of what's happening, ran in circles and darted between shafts of sunlight.

Rob and Barb Ogden of Virginia watched as 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Tim Dobbins, a Humvee and truck driver, said goodbye to his 1-year-old son, Dylon.

"I'm pretty overwhelmed," said Dobbins' mom, Barb, as she quietly wiped away tears. "Just get him home safely."

Dobbins, in the Marine Corps just more than a year, recently started practicing to be a machine gunner in an armored turret atop the Humvee he normally drives.

His best friend, 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Ryan Sullivan, a Humvee and truck driver from Mount Airy, is also deploying to Iraq with Bravo Company - a group composed mostly of drivers and mechanics.

Dobbins and Sullivan entered the Marine Corps at the same time and went through basic training together. The two suspect Dobbins will be the gunner while Sullivan drives the Humvee.

"Nobody knows until we get there," Sullivan said. "All I know is he's all I've got over there. I've got his back, and he's got mine."

The group has prepared for this mission since March, Sullivan said. In Iraq, they'll replace a similar detachment from their sister unit, Alpha Company, 2nd Transportation Support Battalion.

Both Dobbins and Sullivan are going to turn 21 during the deployment, so they're planning a joint birthday bash for when they get home.

"They're not old enough to drink, but they can go over and defend our country," said Sullivan's father, Tim. "I just want my son back safely."

Several of Dobbins' relatives were in the military, so joining the Marine Corps seemed like a good fit for him. Sullivan, who was home schooled, had some different reasons for joining, however.

"I felt like that's where I belong," Sullivan said. "There's something about it. I feel needed."

This deployment marks the end of nearly four months of training, said 36-year-old 1st Sgt. Orlanda Grimsley of Dothan, Ala.

"We'll be running resupplies into some hot-spot cities," said Grimsley, the group's senior enlisted leader.

There has been frequent communication between the two companies, Grimsley said, so these troops aren't deploying into the unknown. Every time Alpha Company learned something, it sent information via classified e-mail to Bravo Company, which in turn practiced it.

Been there, done that

During Grimsley's 16-year Marine Corps career, he has been on three deployments to the Mediterranean Sea, two six-month deployments to Japan, and he's been to the Middle East with operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom I.

Vanessa, his wife of 20 years, has been with him in spirit, every step of the way.

"It's busy being a first sergeant's wife," she said. "He's on the go - almost like recruiter duty."

Vanessa, a member of the Key Volunteers, keeps a "handy-dandy roster" of people she needs to check on throughout the unit's deployment.

She's watched her husband rise through the ranks - from private first class - and says the family-support mechanism is better today than ever before. On Monday she was already answering questions from some first-timers.

"Basically, (spouses) want to know, 'Am I going to get to talk to him,'" Vanessa said. "Now things are so modern with the Internet."

According to the Grimsleys, there is an Internet café where these troops are going, so Marines and sailors can send home e-mail, and there are places in Iraq to use prepaid calling cards.

Additionally, the unit publishes a monthly newsletter and sends it to the families.

While mild nervousness spread through some of the younger troops, the old hands know the drill and are ready to get things moving.

"We just want to get over there, put in our time and get back," Grimsley said. "We're tired of training. We're ready to go."

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




http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=25031&Section=News


Ellie

[thedrifter]

U.S. forces tighten grip around Najaf


By Abdul Hussein al-Obeidi
ASSOCIATED PRESS


NAJAF, Iraq — Explosions and gunfire shook Najaf's Old City yesterday in a fierce battle between U.S. forces and Shi'ite militants, as negotiations dragged on over the turnover of the shrine that the fighters have used as their stronghold.
U.S. warplanes and helicopters attacked positions in the Old City for the second consecutive night with bombs and gunfire, witnesses said. Militant leaders said the Imam Ali shrine compound's outer walls were damaged in the attacks. The U.S. military had no comment, although it has been careful to avoid damaging the compound.







Also, five U.S. troops were reported dead in separate incidents, and an American journalist held hostage for more than a week was released by his captors.
Yesterday's clashes in Najaf appeared to be more intense than in recent days as U.S. forces sealed off the Old City. But Iraqi government officials counseled patience, saying they intended to resolve the crisis without raiding the shrine, one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest sites.
"The government will leave no stone unturned to reach a peaceful settlement," National Security Adviser Mouaffaq al-Rubaie said. "It has no intention or interest in killing more people or having even the most trivial damage to the shrine. We have a vested interest in a peaceful settlement."
Senior government officials said last week that an Iraqi force was preparing to raid the shrine within hours to expel the militants loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, but Prime Minister Iyad Allawi quickly backed off that threat.
Such an operation would anger Shi'ites across the country and could turn them against the new government as it tries to gain legitimacy and tackle a 16-month-old insurgency.
In Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni insurgency, four U.S. Marines with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed in separate incidents, the military announced yesterday.
One Marine was killed in action on Saturday, and two died Saturday of wounds received while conducting "security and stability operations" in the province, the military said. Another Marine was killed Saturday when his Humvee flipped after running into a tank, the military said.
A roadside bomb attack yesterday targeting a U.S. military convoy outside the northern city of Mosul killed one U.S. soldier assigned to Task Force Olympia and wounded another, the military said. Two Iraqi children were injured in the blast, said Dr. Mohammed Ahmed of Al-Jumhuri Hospital.
As of Friday, 949 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the U.S. Defense Department.
Late yesterday, U.S. journalist Micah Garen, who was kidnapped Aug. 13 in the southern city of Nasariyah, was released along with his Iraqi translator at Sheik al-Sadr's offices there after the cleric's aides appealed for his freedom.
Mr. Garen and his translator, Amir Doushi, were walking through a market when two armed men in civilian clothes seized them, police said. Insurgents later released a video of Mr. Garen and threatened to kill him if U.S. troops did not leave Najaf.
In a brief interview with the pan-Arab television station Al Jazeera after his release, Mr. Garen thanked Sheik al-Sadr's representatives for their work, which included an appeal to the kidnappers during Friday prayers.
Sheik Aws al-Khafaji, an al-Sadr aide, said the kidnappers mistakenly had thought Mr. Garen was working for U.S. intelligence services.
"The kidnappers listened to the call that we made during Friday prayers, and they contacted us and we asked them to bring him to [Sheik al-Sadr's] office and promised that no one would pursue them," Mr. al-Khafaji said.
In Najaf, a fierce battle between the military and Sheik al-Sadr's militants broke out in the afternoon when insurgents fired a mortar barrage at U.S. troops, witnesses said. Calm returned to the city after about a half-hour.
U.S. forces sealed off the Old City, the center of more than two weeks of fighting here, restoring a cordon that had been loosened in recent days. Several mortar attacks targeted police offices in the city, but no one was injured, officials said.
Fighting in the nearby city of Kufa on Saturday killed 40 militants, according to the Interior Ministry. However, Mahmoud al-Soudani, an al-Sadr aide, called the reports "government propaganda" and said only one militant had been killed.
Sheik al-Sadr has not been seen in public in days, but Mr. al-Soudani said the cleric was in good health and remained in Najaf.




http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040823-124032-3705r.htm


Ellie

[thedrifter]

U.S. Denies Claim It Damaged Najaf Shrine <br />
<br />
By ABDUL HUSSEIN AL-OBEIDI <br />
<br />
NAJAF, Iraq - Plumes of black smoke rose above the embattled city of Najaf Tuesday after American warplanes bombed...

[thedrifter]

Aug 24, 6:24 AM EDT

Iraqi Guardsman Ring Najaf Shrine

By ABDUL HUSSEIN AL-OBEIDI
Associated Press Writer





NAJAF, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. and Iraqi forces battled militants in Najaf on Tuesday and Iraqi National Guardsmen surrounded the holy city's Imam Ali Shrine, where insurgents loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been holed up for weeks.

However, a raid into the shrine was not imminent, Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan told Al-Arabiya television.

Witnesses in Najaf said the Iraqi forces accompanied U.S. troops into the Old City for the first time in recent days on Tuesday and were stationed about 200 yards from the shrine. Clashes between militants and the combined U.S. and Iraqi forces rang out and plumes of black smoke rose above the city.

"Today, they complete the operation of encircling the shrine compound," Shaalan said.

Iraqi officials have said that any raid on the shrine would be conducted by Iraqi forces. The presence of U.S. troops at the holy site would infuriate the nation's Shiite majority.

The Iraqi troops will use loudspeakers to urge the militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to evacuate the shrine. These calls will continue "for a long time to give another humanitarian chance for them to surrender," he said.

"If they don't ... listen to reason, then certainly there will be a very simple operation, a very simple raid," he said. "The decisive hours are near."

In Baghdad, assailants targeted the convoys of the interim government's ministers of environment and education in two separate bombings Tuesday, officials said. Neither of the ministers was hurt, but at least five people were reported killed.

In one attack, a car bomb exploded in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Kadisea as Environment Minister Miskhat Moumin was passing through in a convoy, ministry spokesman Dalal Ali said. Moumin escaped unharmed, Ali said.

Four people were killed and two others were injured in that blast, police and hospital officials said.

In a second attack around the same time in the western district of al-Khadra, a roadside bomb exploded as a convoy of vehicles was headed to pick up Education Minister Sami Mudhafar, the police said.

The education minister was not in the convoy at the time, the police brigadier said. The blast killed one of Mudhafar's bodyguards and wounded two others, he said.

Late Monday, U.S. warplanes bombed the area of the Old City, and fires lit up the night sky, witnesses said. Ahmed al-Shaibany, an aide to al-Sadr, said shrapnel from the attack hit the shrine's golden dome, one of its minarets and the compound's outer wall.

The U.S. military denied damaging the shrine and said an air crew saw militants in the compound fire a rocket that clipped one of the walls and explode 10 yards outside.

"We are not doing anything that could have caused damage to the shrine," Marine Capt. Carrie Batson said.

There was no independent confirmation of damage to the shrine, but violence earlier Monday ripped a chunk out of the outer wall of the compound. Explosions throughout the day shook the Old City, which is a mix of streets and narrow, maze-like alleys at the heart of much of the fighting. streets and some were seen leaving Najaf. Militant medical officials said at least two insurgents were killed and four wounded.

Al-Hakim Hospital said two civilians were killed and two others injured, but more casualties were reported in the Old City and could not be reached by emergency workers, said hospital employee Hussein Hadi.

Al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army fighters are behind the uprising, has not been seen in public for many days, and police drove around Najaf with loudspeakers declaring he had fled toward Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq. Al-Sadr's aides denied that.

"Muqtada al-Sadr is still in Najaf and is still supervising the operations," Sheik Aws al-Khafaji, the head of al-Sadr's office in the southern city of Nasiriyah, told Al-Jazeera television.

U.S. warplanes reportedly struck the volatile city of Fallujah early Tuesday. Witnesses said it was unclear what the target was, but they reported flames and smoke in southern neighborhoods.

The U.S. military, which routinely bombs what it describes as insurgent strongholds in the city 40 miles west of Baghdad, had no immediate comment.

In Baghdad, assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. patrol on Monday night, killing one soldier and wounding two others, the military said. The troops were evacuated to a U.S. military hospital, where one of the soldiers succumbed to his wounds. As of Monday, 958 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

The Najaf fighting, which began Aug. 5, has killed at least 40 Iraqi policemen, eight U.S. soldiers and dozens of civilian bystanders. The U.S. military says it has killed hundreds of al-Sadr fighters, though the militia says its casualties have been far lower.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said, "The government of Iraq and Prime Minister Allawi have said that the Mahdi militia should accept their terms for engaging in the political process and vacating the shrine."

He added that the Bush administration has made clear that U.S. forces will not be involved in a move against the holy sites.

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=NCJAC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marine Commandant Wants 'Big W' in Iraq
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Aug. 23, 2004 – The sports world is awash with war analogies, and today the Marine Corps' top officer turned the tables by applying a sports term to war.

The Marines are looking for a "Big W" in Iraq, Gen. Michael W. Hagee told an audience at the National Press Club here.

"We don't want a 'Little W,'" he said. "There is no one in Iraq who does not understand that if we wanted to come in and level Fallujah, level Ramadi, level An-Najaf, we could do that, but that's not mission accomplishment. That's the 'Little W.' We need the 'Big W' here."

The Marines, he said, are working with Multinational Force Iraq and with the interim Iraqi government headed by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to bring about the right kind of victory in the war-torn country. The "Big W" – helping the Iraqi people -- is achievable with patience, he said.

Those comments came during a question-and-answer session after Hagee addressed the group on the future of warfighting. He cited a new twist on the "joint sea basing" concept as a key factor in future wars.

In use since, World War II, joint sea basing is not a new concept. Sixty years ago, it meant securing a foothold and building a "gigantic mound of supplies and logistics," Hagee said.

The new and improved version of this old tactic would keep the arrival and assembly of the forces at sea and employ selective off-loading of supplies and logistics. This concept would provide the ability to send forces wherever they need to be "without waiting for a permission slip," Hagee said, quoting Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark.

When the new vision of joint sea basing becomes common practice, Hagee, said, the result will be the ability to place 15,000 Marines anywhere in the world within 10-12 days. This, he explained, will provide more capability to the joint force commanders faster.

Joint sea basing is only one concept currently in development, the general said. With a goal of excellence in warfighting, the armed services are looking at ways to more closely tie the services' resources, he added.

One such concept is TacAir integration. TacAir would meld the Navy's and the Marine Corps' strike assets into one team. Models demonstrate that by employing TacAir integration and tying the Navy and Marine air assets together to use as one force, more sorties and more combat capability are possible at less cost to the taxpayer.

But, Hagee said, it's not technologies or tactics that are the most important aspect of the Navy and the Marine Corps.

"All of those are important," he said. "But the most important thing to us, of course, is that individual Marine and that individual sailor. And I can tell you, the most dangerous thing on any battle field is an armed, trained and educated United States Marine."



Ellie

[thedrifter]

Homecoming sweet for Marines at Miramar

By: KATHERINE MARKS - Staff Writer

MIRAMAR ---- For Crystal Ward, the hardest part of Monday's agonizing and joyful reunion with her husband, a Marine who was deployed in Iraq for the last six months, wasn't that his flight was delayed 105 minutes.

It was enduring the 10 minutes that his plane taxied, seemingly landing as far away as possible from the crowd in a far-flung hangar at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

It was the six minutes the plane was parked on the tarmac before the first Marine got off. And the 14 minutes from then until the time the rope between the Marines and sailors and their loved ones was dropped.


"These last minutes ---- they're torture," the 21-year-old Ward said as she rocked her two-seater stroller and waited to spot her tall, thin husband, Sgt. Jason Ward. In the back seat of the stroller sat 2-month-old Addison, whom dad had only seen in pictures.

Ward was one of more than 280 Marines and sailors serving in the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing to return to the base on Monday from Iraq. Troops from the air wing performed air support operations for the nearly 30,000-strong Marine force in the Al Anbar, Najaf and Al Qadisiyah provinces south and west of Baghdad.

Many of the men and women served similar stints last year, but that didn't make the reunions any less poignant.

Ward held his infant daughter for a minute before getting a big hug from son Malachi, 2. He wasn't one for long speeches as his wife videotaped the meeting. "It's awesome," he said of meeting his infant daughter for the first time.

Hours before the plane finally came into view, hundreds of people filled half a hangar at the air station, using colored markers to write messages on white signs given out by the San Diego Navy League. Many relatives had brought hand-scrawled signs of support. There were "Welcome Home Mommy" and "Welcome Home Daddy" signs and "Semper Fi" banners galore.

Lisa Rose wore a T-shirt bearing a picture of her son, Cpl. Jason Lansdon. Her daughter Melissa and granddaughter Cheyenne, 5, had their own shirts with his picture as well. Rose, who lives in the Phoenix area, said her son turned 21 in Iraq. Unlike when he spent eight months there last year, he was able to e-mail his family regularly this time around.

After waiting for Lansdon to not only disembark, but also get a room assignment and turn in his rifle, the family was reunited; the young corporal had a hug for mom.

Lansdon said he was glad to be in the bright sunshine of San Diego and out of the heat of Iraq. "It's great to be home."

He said he was looking forward to some healthy home-cooked meals and spending time with people who don't wear camouflage. He may be deployed again in March, he said as his mom stood next to the son she hadn't seen since January.

"I'm just hoping a lot of things change between now and then," Rose said taking her son in once again.

Contact staff writer Katherine Marks at (760) 740-3529 or kmarks@nctimes.com.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/08/24/military/18_07_038_23_04.txt


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Chaplains Lend Spiritual Aid In Iraq
Associated Press
August 23, 2004


NAJAF, Iraq - The Marines screamed for a medic and tried to stanch the blood. But in the end, there was nothing they could do. In a surreal battlefield of tombstones, in a Muslim cemetery thousands of miles from home, a young Marine lay unconscious after a mortar barrage, five minutes from death.

Lt. Cmdr. Paul Shaughnessy, a Navy chaplain, pressed a thumb across the motionless corporal's blood-drenched forehead, made the sign of the cross and summoned the strength to perform last rites on a man he barely knew.

"I absolve you of all your sins in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," Shaughnessy said while kneeling beside Cpl. Roberto Abad, a 22-year-old from Los Angeles, just before he died Aug. 6. "May God, who gave you life, bring you everlasting life."

As American troops cope with life - and death - on a faraway battlefield, military chaplains cope with them, offering prayers, comfort and spiritual advice to keep the American military machine running.

Since Aug. 5, U.S. troops have fought intense skirmishes with Iraqi militants loyal to firebrand Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Najaf's vast cemetery, believed to be the largest in the Muslim world.

Through a maze of tan-colored, Arabic-inscribed tombs, U.S. troops have scrambled onto mausoleums to open fire, taken refuge in underground crypts and, with bombs falling and bullets flying, wondered whether they might die here.

"Many of them had a great deal of reservation about going into a cemetery," said Capt. Warren Haggray, 48-year-old Baptist Army chaplain living in Fort Hood, Texas. "One of the things that I teach my soldiers from the Bible is that there's a time for war and there's a time for peace, and there are times that you just have to get out there and fight."

Shaughnessy, a 54-year-old Roman Catholic priest from Worcester, Mass., had just finished a prayer service for a lance corporal, shot fatally in the neck by a sniper, when he joined a supply convoy to spend the night with Marines in the cemetery.

Crouched behind tombstones for cover, the Marines came under mortar attack at dusk.

One round exploded about 50 yards from Shaughnessy, who, after hearing calls for help, found two severely wounded Marines bleeding profusely.

Believing they would die, he performed last rites on both of them.

One was wounded in the thigh and survived, Shaughnessy learned later.

The second, pinned between two tombstones, did not.

Lacking a stretcher, the Marines put rifles under the corporal's legs and back to move him out of the cemetery.

"The young Marines who carried him, they were switching off," Shaughnessy said. "One, he was his buddy, he had blood all over him. He was pretty affected by it. He came back to his position, and I said, 'You gotta take deep breaths.' They lost a fellow Marine, and they knew they had to continue, but in their eyes, you could see the sadness."

At such times, chaplains, who accompany military units unarmed, can help simply by being present.

"A lot of them wanted blessings during that time. You just didn't know through the night what was gonna happen," Shaughnessy said. "The first time you have an RPG or a mortar explode next to you it's pretty sobering. The reality of death is more than just an abstraction. It matures them pretty fast."

Few troops appear to have reservations about taking what they see as "enemy" life, though.

Chaplains help grease the wheels of any soldier's troubled conscience by arguing that killing combatants is justified.

"I teach them from the scripture, and in the scripture I can see many times where men were told ... to go out and defeat the enemy," Haggray said. "This is real stuff. You're out there and you gotta eliminate that guy, because if you don't, he's gonna eliminate you."

Shaughnessy agreed.

"The Marine Corps is an assault-based entity. You have to have them ready to do some pretty nasty things. The danger is turning that off, that's always the problem," he said. "We want them to perform their duties in a moral and just way. I try to convey to them in the most cogent way I can that you don't use excessive force, you don't take innocent life."

One Marine deployed near the cemetery, following orders from his superiors, sprayed gunfire on a vehicle that failed to stop at a checkpoint after a series of warning shots, Shaughnessy said.

When the bullet-ridden car rolled to a halt, the Marine found two men and one woman, apparently civilians, dead or on the verge of death, inside.

"It bothered him immensely," Shaughnessy said. "I told him the intention is important. You had warned them that they were in a combatant zone, your intent was not to take any civilian life, and morally, that's significant."


http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_chaplains_082304,00.html

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines keep strong hold on position near Fallujah
Submitted by: 1st Marine Division
Story Identification #: 200481833339
Story by Sgt. Jose E. Guillen



CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (Aug. 17, 2004) -- Marines dodged bullets and mortar fire to grab hold of key terrain south of Fallujah Friday.

The Marines of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment are keeping a strong position at Traffic Control Point 8 to deter anti-coalition forces from transporting munitions.

"This position is vital, so we're ensuring no enemy personnel are transporting weapons in and out of Fallujah," said Sgt. Fernando Rafael, a squad leader in Weapons Platoon, Company K, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.

"We're just trying to keep the peace out here because this road is important," said Sgt. James Eldridge, a 24-year-old team leader with the company, from Lynn, Mass.

While TCP 8 is subject to random rocket attacks, the company is dishing out their own mortar assaults at enemy pockets in Fallujah.

"Our mission is to support the company, snipers and tanks with indirect fire with 60-millimeter mortars," said Cpl. Ronald C. Mollohan III, a section leader with Mortars Platoon.

"Weapons Company is helping out with 81-millimeter mortars - it can get busy," added Mollohan, a 24-year-old from Frankfurt, KY.

Rafael said that because of the AIF's lack of technology like night vision, enemy activity is at a minimum in the evening.

"It's only busy during the day because they can see us," Rafael explained.

Even so, engaging the enemy can be a challenge.

"The indirect fire from the enemy is the most challenging because they're out of range of small arms at times," said Capt. Timothy J. Jent, the 37-year-old commanding officer of Company K, from Sparta, NJ.

Rafael said his company will eventually rotate out of position, but they feel they have given their enemy something to remember.

"The Iraqis have definitely felt our presence because we haven't had too many enemy personnel attempt to come through our vehicle checkpoint," Rafael said.

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/200481852415/$file/TCP84lr.jpg

Cpl. Ronald Mollohan III, a section leader in Mortars Platoon, Company K, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, keeps a close ear to radio traffic after shooting a fire mission of 60-millimeter mortars directed at pockets of enemy in Fallujah, Iraq Aug. 14.
(USMC Photo by Sgt. Jose E. Guillen) Photo by: Sgt. Jose L. Garcia

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/67A2681641D3CCD185256EF4002988C1?opendocument

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Over Najaf, fighting for my hometown
Glen G. Butler NYT Tuesday, August 24, 2004
A Marine's tale

NAJAF, Iraq I'm an average American who grew up watching "Brady Bunch" reruns, playing dodge ball and listening to Van Halen. Now, I'm a Marine helicopter pilot who has spent the last two weeks heavily engaged with enemy forces here. I'm writing this between missions, without much time or care to polish, so please look to the heart of these thoughts and not their structure.
.
I got in the country a little more than a month ago, eager to do my part here for the global war on terror and still get home in one piece. I'm a mid-grade officer, so I probably have a better-than-average understanding of the complexity of the situation, but I make no claims to see the bigger picture or offer any strategic solutions. Two years of my military training were spent in classrooms in Quantico, Virginia. I've read Sun Tzu several times; I've flipped through Mao's Little Red Book and debated over Thucydides; I've analyzed Henry Kissinger's "Diplomacy" and Clausewitz's "On War"; and I've walked the battlefields of Antietam, Belleau Wood, Majuba and Isandlwana.
.
I've also studied a little about the culture I'm deep in the middle of, know a bit about the caliph, about the five pillars and about Allah, but know I don't know enough. I am also a believer in our cause - I put that up front just so there isn't any question of my motivation.
.
We Marines are proudly apolitical, yet stereotypically right-wing conservative. I'm both. And I'd be here with my fellow devildogs, fighting just as hard, whether John Kerry or George W. Bush or Ralph Nader were our commander-in-chief, until we're told to go home.
.
On Aug. 5, after a few days of building intensity, war erupted in Najaf (again). When we had first come to Iraq, we were told our mission would be to conduct so-called SASO, or Security and Stability Operations, and to train the Iraqi military and police to do their jobs so we could go home. Obviously, the security part of SASO is still the emphasis, but our unit's area of operations had been very quiet for months, so most of us weren't expecting a fight so soon.
.
That changed rapidly when Marines responded to requests for assistance from the Iraqi forces in Najaf battling Moktada al-Sadr's militia, who had attacked local police stations. Our helicopters were called on the scene to provide close air support, and soon one of them was shot down. That was when this war became real for me.
.
Since then my squadron has been providing continuous support for our engaged Marine brothers on the ground, by this point slugging it out hand-to-hand in the city's ancient Muslim cemetery. The Imam Ali shrine in Najaf is the burial place of the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, and is one of the most revered sites in Shiite Islam. The cemetery to its north is gigantic, filled with crypts and mausoleums. We had been warned it was an "exclusion zone" when we got here, that the local authorities had asked us to not go in there or fly overhead, even though we knew the bad guys were using this area to hide weapons, make improvised explosive devices, and plan against us. Being the culturally sensitive force we are, we agreed - until Aug. 5. Suddenly, I was conducting support missions over the Marines' heads in the graveyard, dodging anti-aircraft artillery and rocket-propelled grenades and preparing to be shot down, too. My perspective broadened rapidly. At first there were no news media in Najaf; now, I assume, it's getting crowded, although the authorities have restricted access after a group of journalists "embedded" with the Mahdi Militia muddied the problem and jeopardized others' safety. I haven't had time to catch much CNN or Fox News, and although I've seen a few headlines forwarded to me by friends, I don't think the world is seeing the complete picture.
.
I want to emphasize that our military is using every means possible to minimize damage to historical, religious and civilian structures, and is going out of its way to protect the innocent. I have not shot one round without good cause, whether it be in response to machine gun fire aimed at me or mortars shot at soldiers and Marines on the ground.
.
The battle has been surreal, focused largely in the cemetery, where families continue burying their dead even as I swoop in low overhead to make sure they aren't sneaking in behind our forces' flanks, or pulling a surface-to-air missile out of the coffin. Children continue playing soccer in the dirt fields next door, and locals wave to us as we fly over their rooftops in preparation for gun runs into the enemy's positions.
.
Sure, some of those people might be waving just to make sure we don't shoot them, but I think the majority are on our side. I've learned that this enemy is not just a mass of angry Iraqis who want us to leave their country, as some would have you believe. The forces we're fighting around Iraq are a conglomeration of renegade Shiites, former Baathists, Iranians, Syrians, terrorists with ties to Ansar al-Islam and Al Qaeda, petty criminals, destitute citizens looking for excitement or money, and yes, even a few frustrated Iraqis who worry about Wal-Mart culture infringing on their neighborhood.
.
But I see the others who are on our side, appreciate us risking our lives, and know we're in the right. The Iraqi soldiers who are fighting alongside us are motivated to take their country back. I've not been deluded into thinking that we came here to free the Iraqis. That is indeed the icing on the cake, but I came here to prevent the still active "grave and gathering threat" from congealing into something we wouldn't be able to stop.
.
Weapons of mass destruction or no, I'm glad that we ended the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. His attempt to assassinate George H.W. Bush, his use of chemical weapons on his own people and his invasion of a neighboring country are just a few of the other reasons I believe we should have acted sooner. He eventually would have had the means to cause America great harm - no doubt in my mind. The pre-emptive doctrine of the current administration will continue to be debated long after I'm gone, but one fact stands for itself: America has not been hit with another catastrophic attack since Sept. 11, 2001. I firmly believe that our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq are major reasons that we've had it so good at home. Building a "fortress America" is not only impractical, it's impossible. Prudent homeland security measures are vital, to be sure, but attacking the source of the threat remains essential.
.
Now we are on the verge of victory or defeat in Iraq. Success depends not only on battlefield superiority, but also on the trust and confidence of the American people. I've read some articles recently that call for cutting back our military presence in Iraq and moving our troops to the peripheries of most cities. Such advice is well-intentioned but wrong - it would soon lead to a total withdrawal. Our goal needs to be a safe Iraq, free of militias and terrorists; if we simply pull back and run, then the region will pose an even greater threat than it did before the invasion. I also fear if we do not win this battle here and now, my 7-year-old son might find himself here in 10 or 11 years, fighting the same enemies and their sons.
.
When critics of the war say their advocacy is on behalf of those of us risking our lives here, it's a type of false patriotism. I believe that when Americans say they "support our troops," it should include supporting our mission, not just sending us care packages. They don't have to believe in the cause as I do; but they should not denigrate it. That only aids the enemy in defeating us strategically.
.
The filmmaker Michael Moore recently asked the Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly if he would sacrifice his son for Falluja. A clever rhetorical device, but it's the wrong question: This war is about Des Moines, Iowa, not Falluja. Iraq is breeding and attracting militants who are all eager to grab box cutters, dirty bombs, suicide vests or biological weapons, and then come fight us in Chicago, Santa Monica or Long Island. Falluja, in fact, was very close to becoming a city our forces could have controlled, and then given new schools and sewers and hospitals, before we pulled back in the spring. Now, essentially ignored, it has become a Taliban-like state of Islamic extremism, a terrorist safe haven. We must not let the same fate befall Najaf or Ramadi or the rest of Iraq.
.
No, I would not sacrifice myself, my parents would not sacrifice me, and President George W. Bush would not sacrifice a single Marine or soldier simply for Falluja. Rather, that symbolic city is but one step toward a free and democratic Iraq, which is one step closer to a more safe and secure America.
.
I miss my family, my friends and my country, but right now there is nowhere else I'd rather be. I am a U.S. Marine.
.
Glen G. Butler is a major in the Marines.

http://www.iht.com/articles/535312.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Iraq Forces Advance on Najaf Shrine, Battle Rages
By REUTERS

Published: August 24, 2004


Filed at 9:18 a.m. ET

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces moved to within 400 yards of a holy shrine in Najaf on Tuesday, just hours after the government warned Shi'ite rebels inside they would be killed if they did not surrender.

``God willing, we'll be moving in tonight,'' a commander of one unit told Reuters, adding that around 500 Iraqi troops had been deployed to the area around the Imam Ali mosque, the first time government forces have entered the battle zone.



The advance was carried out by 50 servicemen and came after U.S. helicopters fired missiles and strafed militia positions in a cemetery that adjoins the mosque, where most of the Mehdi Army loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have holed up during a bloody three-week rebellion in the southern city.

A U.S. soldier guided the men in. They were shot at by Mehdi militiamen and returned fire.

``We are in the last hours. This evening, Iraqi forces will reach the doors of the shrine and control it and appeal to the Mehdi Army to throw down their weapons,'' Defense Minister Hazim al-Shalaan said at a U.S. army base outside Najaf.

``If they do not, we will wipe them out.''

With fighting raging, U.S. tanks reinforced positions along the southern flank of the mosque. Black smoke rose from the area and automatic gunfire crackled after an overnight bombardment from U.S. warplanes and artillery.

The ultimatum from the U.S.-backed interim government is the latest in a series of threats that Iraqi forces will storm the shrine to disarm the militia.

MINISTERS TARGETED

In Baghdad, insurgents tried to assassinate Iraq's environment and education ministers in separate bombings that killed five of their bodyguards and wounded more than a dozen people, officials said.

Environment Minister Mishkat Moumin said she survived a suicide car bomb attack on her convoy in Baghdad. Education Minister Sami al-Mudhaffar was unhurt after a roadside bomb hit his convoy in the city, officials said.

A group linked to al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attempt on Moumin and said it would not miss next time, according to an Internet statement.

The attacks were the latest attempts to kill officials in the government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who took power from U.S.-led occupiers barely two months ago and faces crises on many fronts, especially in Najaf.

``Serving the Iraqi people is not a crime that deserves this,'' an outraged Moumin told Reuters after the blast.

Moumin said four of her bodyguards were killed in the suicide bombing. Up to 15 people were wounded. One of Mudhaffar's bodyguards died in the attack on his convoy.

``I opened the door to leave for work and the blast knocked me over,'' said Ali al-Tai, a local resident standing in front of his home only meters (yards) from the blast site where Moumin was targeted, blood from victims splattered on his shirt.

In July, Iraq's justice minister survived a suicide car bomb attack on his convoy in Baghdad. The then head of the Iraqi Governing Council, Izzedin Salim, was killed in May in a similar strike. Both of those attacks were claimed by Zarqawi.

IRAQI FORCES CLOSE IN

U.S. marines have done most of the fighting in Najaf, which has killed hundreds, driven oil prices to record highs and touched off clashes in seven other southern and central cities.

But any raid by U.S. troops on Iraq's holiest Shi'ite shrine could trigger a firestorm of protest from the country's majority Shi'ite community.

A rocket fired by militants clipped the wall of the gold-domed mosque on Tuesday and may have damaged the building, the U.S. military said. Both sides have accused each other of attacks near the shrine and of failing to respect holy ground.

Insurgents also attacked a truck and an ambulance taking aid to Najaf, killing two people and setting the vehicles on fire, a Reuters witness said. Cameraman Alaa Saad said from the scene the vehicles were attacked south of Baghdad.

But news that Iraq's crude exports were back to normal on Monday helped calm jittery oil markets. Prices reached nearly $50 a barrel last week after sabotage and threats cut exports.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Echo Company

By Lisa Fernandez
San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News

FREMONT, Calif. - Diane Layfield remembers dancing with her son Travis last year at a Brooks & Dunn concert on top of a grassy hill under the stars. She thinks to herself how lucky she was that her teenager chose his mother as his date.

She clings to that memory. She spends free time filling boxes in her living room with photos, letters, articles, anything at all that connects her to her "Travi.''

Lance Cpl. Travis Layfield was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment. His family said he'd been promoted to radio operator and was the first one out of the Humvee during the mission in which he was killed on April 6. He was 19.

"He was a good kid," his mother said. "He never really gave me any trouble."

Well, she said, laughing. That's not exactly true. Inspiring him to do well in school was always a challenge. And when he was 16 he ran away with a woman about 10 years older, only to call his mom teary-eyed late at night a year later to say things weren't working out.

Travis Layfield had two sides. He was a Rambo-style Marine who loved monster trucks and weapons and wanted to "kick butt" in Iraq. He was also a sweet romantic who took a girlfriend a rose on their first date, danced with unattractive girls at school to make them feel desirable and stayed by his "Auntie Tanya's" side in the hospital when she broke her arm.

"He's like me," said John Layfield, 47, a forklift operator at the NUMMI car manufacturing plant in Fremont, still using the present tense to describe his son. "He's a caretaker and he's a shy Casanova. He'd do anything for a laugh, and then he'll get embarrassed that he did. I also get beet red."

John Layfield at first thought a regimented military life would be good for Travis, who got by with C's and D's in school. He liked the fact that Travis initially was interested in the Navy. Travis' maternal grandfather was a Seabee in World War II, and Travis had always enjoyed playing soldier.

But when Travis enlisted in the Marines in 2002, about the time President Bush was talking of going to war in Iraq, John Layfield was filled with fear.

"I tried to talk him out of it," he said. "What did the Iraqi people do to us?"

He said Travis listened, but had a mind of his own.

"He had that teenage mentality," his father said. "He said, 'I'll be OK. I won't get hurt.' "

Travis entered boot camp in June 2003. His first overseas assignment came on Feb. 16: He was sent to Germany and Kuwait and then to Iraq in March.

Today, John Layfield cries often. He's been sent home from work at least four times because the pain is unbearable.

He's bitter and angry at President Bush, and at God.

To keep a tangible connection to Travis, he's restored his son's prized possession, a sky-blue 1962 Ford Galaxy. He carries Travis' last letter with him. It's dated March 31. He received it 16 days later, the day he buried his son.

In the letter, Travis described in simple yet horrifying detail how some of his friends had been blown apart, one in half, and how another had an eye dangling out of its socket. In that letter, he promised his father he'd come home safe.

Travis was born on May 26, 1984. It was Memorial Day weekend, and his mother decorated everything red, white and blue.

His father coached Travis and his younger brother, Tyler, now 17, in Little League when they were kids. Everyone said the Layfield family was tight-knit. His parents split shifts so one parent could be home with the children.

Diane Layfield has two older children from her first marriage. Her daughter from that marriage, Tiffany Bolton, 32, of Sunnyvale, Calif., baby-sat Travis, who was 12 years younger. When the Layfields divorced amicably in 1998, they remained roommates for a while for the boys' sake.

Family friend Laura Oliva of Hayward, Calif., said it was the kind of family in which everyone said "I love you" before heading out the door.

Travis never liked school, but his mother said he steered clear of trouble. He did what he wanted without fearing what others would think, she said. His friends wore baggy pants down to their knees, but Travis preferred form-fitting Levis. Tyler liked to watch sports on TV; Travis preferred the History Channel.

Underneath his crew cut and gentlemanly behavior, Travis enjoyed a good time. He never missed a school dance. And in a photo taken before he was deployed, the Layfield family is seen sitting in a Tijuana restaurant wearing crazy balloon hats.

"He was a real goof," his mom said. "He loved to have fun."

When Travis was about 9, his family went to an air show at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif. The airplane hangars were wide open.

"He saw kids in uniform," Bolton said. "And he said, 'I want to sign up.' That's where it started."

He enrolled in a Navy ROTC program in Hayward. He loved carrying flags in parades and eating mess-hall food with his friends. He began saying, "Yes, ma'am. No ma'am."

While he embraced Marine life with gusto, sporting a "Devil Dog" tattoo on one shoulder and a feather tattoo, symbolic of his Lakota Sioux ancestry, on the other, Travis also expressed some doubt. In letters to Mom and Dad, he talks of the "rush" he felt during raids of Iraqi homes looking for weapons and wanting to "kick butt." But he also wrote that he wondered why the United States was in Iraq. The people hated the American presence.

Some mornings, Diane Layfield wakes up and thinks about the fact that Travis will never marry or give her grandchildren. She knows they'll never again have a mother-son dance to country music.

She wants to make it an annual tradition to go it to every Brooks & Dunn concert when they play at the Shoreline in Mountain View.

"Yeah, it will be sad," she said. "Every day is sad. But I know it'll be positive and I know he'll be there in spirit with us."

Contact Lisa Fernandez at LFernandez@mercurynews.com

http://www.realcities.com/images/realcities/realcities/9263/85808855482.jpg

Age: 19
Home: Fremont, California
Lance Cpl. Travis Layfield
"He's a caretaker and he's a shy Casanova. He'd do anything for a laugh, and then he'll get embarrassed that he did."

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/echo_company/9282985.htm


Ellie

[thedrifter]

This appeared in Sunday's (Aug 22, 2004) Houston Chronicle and it's written by a LAWYER! Guess this is one lawyer who knows what is going on...



How to show love in a time of war



Each of us can make a difference in a soldier's life
By CLAUDE M. McQUARRIE III
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle News Services

Hate war, but love the American soldier. That was the message intended by Gen. Hal Moore in his book We Were Soldiers (co-authored with reporter Joe Galloway), which Mel Gibson brought to theaters last year. The book, an apolitical chronicle of the 1965 Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam and the sacrifices of so many there, was a needed reminder that however unpopular a war may be, a free society cannot overlook caring appropriately for the citizens it sends into battle. Freedom, after all, isn't free. More than a generation later, we all still hate war. But are we doing everything we reasonably can to love the American soldier, our men and women in uniform?

Last week, friends and family said goodbye to Capt. Andrew R. Houghton, a Houston-area soldier who gave his life for freedom -- not just our freedom, but for everyone's freedom. Andy was one of Houston's best and brightest, having graduated from Strake Jesuit College Prep and then from West Point. He was an athlete, honor student, Eagle Scout, debater and more. He organized the Special Olympics at West Point. He worked tirelessly as a volunteer for Taping For The Blind. Like Gen. Moore, Andy unreservedly embraced the ideals of West Point that are its motto, "Duty, Honor, Country." As an Army officer, he was a soldier's leader, anxious to be with his men. Uppermost in his mind, along with his platoon's mission, was his men's safety. Andy knew, and willingly took, the risks. Though only 25, he told his father that should he become a casualty, he had lived a good life. To say Andy was unselfish would be an understatement. He knew he did not have to go to war. Like all other ! soldiers in our current military forces, he volunteered, convinced that such principles as freedom and human dignity are more important than money, personal comfort, pleasurable living, even life itself. Buried last Monday at West Point, Andy left behind two justifiably proud parents, George and Cindy, and a brother, Army Lt. Matt Houghton.

In this election season, aspects of the war on terror have become controversial. The war, and the political debate, rage on. For most of us, however, busy life in the apparent security of our city continues with the same routines. Success at work or school, paying the bills and shopping for the groceries seem far more important than a war halfway around the globe. We are numb to the daily reports of another ambush or mortar attack that kills or injures an unidentified soldier. Unless we have a loved one there, it just doesn't feel like we are at war. Besides, there is nothing we can do, as a practical matter, to make a difference.

Wrong.

We can make a difference.

We can love our soldiers in ways that befit their courage, sacrifice and selfless service to our nation. Each day, we should remember our troops with a moment of silence or prayer. We should ensure our children do so, as well.

That's not enough, though.

When we receive an e-mail at work about contributing to the troop support boxes being sent overseas, we should participate. If our employer isn't sending us such an e-mail, we should encourage our employer to get involved. If we're the boss, we should lead the way. We should get our class, church or employer to adopt a soldier's unit and support them with boxes of goods and letters. When we see a soldier, we should thank him/her for their service and extend any possible courtesy. Retailers should give discounts to military personnel and, if appropriate, their dependents. Landlords should accommodate the difficult and unpredictable circumstances of soldiers and their families. Employers whose employees are activated reservists should continue to pay them the difference between their salary and military pay so that fixed obligations such as rent or mortgage payments can still be met.

Some among us are unselfishly doing some of these. Some is not enough, however.

We are a remarkable society, one in which innovation is a daily occurrence. We should use that ingenuity to find tangible ways to help soldiers and veterans. If there were a financial reward for such innovation, we'd do it in a heartbeat. Let's not wait. Do it now. If you know of a soldier who is recovering from wounds, befriend him and his family and help them in whatever way you can. If you don't know of one, find one. There are plenty. If you learn of a soldier who paid the ultimate sacrifice, help his survivors, not just with their grief, but also with their real-life problems.

Finally, we should recommit ourselves not to take for granted the principles for which our soldiers sacrifice so much: freedom, human dignity, peace and justice. Those principles have become, and with a few exceptions have so far have remained, our way of life -- but at very dear cost. As recent events have reminded us, they are not forever secure.

None of these measures requires agreement with any political point of view. They are more than lip service. They require thoughtful action and, yes, even a small degree of sacrifice on our part.

That is the love Gen. Moore had in mind. It is what each of us owes Andy Houghton and all others like him who have sacrificed so much. Love for the American soldier must be an integral part of our culture and remain so always. That will happen only if we all do our part.

McQuarrie, a 1972 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, has practiced law in Houston since leaving the Army in 1982.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines slash final combat training in half
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
BY DAVID WOOD
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
Under growing pressure to ship Marines to Iraq, the Marine Corps is cutting in half the rigorous field combat training it gives units preparing to deploy, senior officers say.

The Marines hope to make up the time by intensifying this final, pre-deployment training and focusing it on skills needed to survive and prevail in Iraq's brutal combat conditions. This means practicing more nighttime operations, ambushes, city fighting and guarding of convoys.

The exercise, called a CAX in Marine lingo, has been shortened from 23 to 11 days, Col. Blake Crowe, operations officer for the Marine Corps Training Command at Quantico, Va., said in an interview.

This was done, Crowe said, to "get more battalions through" in a shorter period of time. Until now, the Marine Corps trained 10 battalions in CAX every six months. Under the accelerated schedule, it will train eight battalions in two months.

The intense course, to begin this fall at the Marine desert training base at Twentynine Palms, Calif., will for the first time include thousands of Marines who hold traditionally noncombat jobs such as truck driver, intelligence analyst and jet aircraft technician.

Increasingly, these "noninfantry" Marines are deploying into combat zones where they find themselves suddenly under fire and unprepared. Commanders in Iraq report that some Marines, pressed into the fight from their truck cabs and computer consoles, have not had combat training in a decade.

"This is a high priority, identified in after-action reports" from commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq, Crowe said.

All Marines get some entry-level combat training. New infantrymen get 50 days of hard schooling in weapons handling and combat tactics. In contrast, those headed into noninfantry jobs get just 16 days in the muddy, mosquito-swarmed woods of Camp Lejeune in coastal North Carolina. Then they depart for schools in technical specialties ranging from food management to logistics planning and helicopter flight crews.

Once units are alerted for duty in Iraq, they will be cycled through the training at Twentynine Palms -- infantrymen and clerks, cooks and truck drivers alike.

Approximately 31,000 Marines are in Iraq -- almost 20 percent of the active-duty force that also deploys to Afghanistan, Okinawa and the major anti-terrorist base in Djibouti, on the Red Sea.

Across the Marine Corps, the unanticipated and unbudgeted requirements of rotating fresh, well-trained troops through Iraq have forced dramatic and sometimes painful adjustments and compromises.

The new, noninfantry Marines who show up for their crash course in combat at Camp Lejeune each year are well aware of the building pressure. They literally run from one event to the next, and in their final field exercise they work around the clock, snatching 20 or 30 minutes of sleep when they can.

"I wish we did have more time," said Capt. Dan Snyder, who oversees the teaching of 54 specific combat skills. "It's difficult to do in the time we have."

That's incentive for Camp Lejeune's instructors -- many of them veterans of combat in Iraq -- to bear down hard during the 16 days in the field.

"You have a 70 percent chance of going into combat, a 5 percent chance of getting killed or wounded -- pay attention!" Staff Sgt. Charles Kilgore, a combat instructor, barked at a formation of exhausted Marines in sodden, sweat-stained fatigues and muddy boots.

"I've definitely seen a ramp-up in intensity here," said Capt. Mark Reid, who oversees combat instructors. "This is not, 'Let us entertain you on your way to jet mechanics school.' What they're learning here they will be doing in Iraq or Afghanistan."

"It's demanding," admitted Pvt. Daniel Sanabria-Morales, 22, of North Plainfield, N.J. "In boot camp they tell you how to do everything. Here you gotta be thinking. And we're constantly on the move."

The Marines are tested on each of the 54 specific skills they must master, answering questions on written tests and demonstrating proficiency in front of an instructor. Those who fail are retaught until they can pass.

But money is short, and so is time.

Staff Sgt. Don Allen, a combat instructor, said his trainees watch demonstrations of the M203 grenade launcher, the Squad Automatic Weapon and the .50-caliber machine gun, but not everyone gets to actually fire the weapons.

"It's financial," said Allen, a combat engineer who fought in Iraq last year with the 8th Marines. "I wish I had the money for them to shoot actual rounds. When I went through this training in 1995, we all shot every weapon."

The final 36 hours of Camp Lejeune's 16-day course begins at 5 a.m. and ends with a 15-kilometer march with full combat loads. In between are back-to-back classes and field exercises.

"It's not that stressful; it's more fun," said Pvt. Rosalind Sanchez of Menifee, Calif. "This is why I joined."

"They give you too much information, class after class," said Pfc. Christopher Schneider, a 20-year-old from Longwood, Fla., who will train as an aircraft airframe mechanic. "But if I went to Iraq, I'd definitely feel confident."

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-17/1093325900144970.xml


Ellie

[thedrifter]

'It Isn't War' <br />
<br />
By Richard Hart Sinnreich <br />
Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page B07 <br />
<br />
Watching the gallant but doomed charge of the British light cavalry brigade against the Russian guns at Balaclava...

[thedrifter]

6 Futenma CH-53Ds set off for Iraq


By David Allen, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Tuesday, August 24, 2004


GINOWAN, Okinawa — Six CH-53D Sea Stallion heavy-lift helicopters left Marine Corps Air Station Futenma on Sunday for duty with the Okinawa-based 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit in Iraq.

The resumption of flight operations for the Sea Stallions took place nine days after another Sea Stallion clipped an administration building on the campus of Okinawa International University and burst into flames after it crashed. Flights were resumed after an initial investigation showed the accident was “solely unique” to the helicopter involved.

The three Hawaii-based crew members, on Okinawa as part of a six-month Unit Deployment Program, survived the crash but all flight activity at the base, which is next to the school, was suspended pending safety inspections.

Flights for all aircraft except the Sea Stallions started again two days after the crash.

Resumption of any flight activity was met with a resounding chorus of protests from prefectural and local governments, who had called for all air operations to stop until the Aug. 13 crash investigation was complete and the findings made public.

On Saturday, Marine Lt. Gen. Robert L. Blackman, the island’s top U.S. general, assured Okinawa Gov. Keiichi Inamine that the Sea Stallions remained on the ground. However, he announced the resumption of “minimal operational essential helicopter flying … specifically for deployment of the 31st MEU to the Arabian Gulf.”

Observers at the Ginowan City Municipal Building on Sunday say they saw the first Sea Stallion take off at 12:34 p.m. and the sixth leave the base at 12:46 p.m. All six headed for the USS Essex at the White Beach Naval Facility, a city spokesman said.

At 12:22 p.m. the Marines issued a news release announcing the flights.

“CH-53D helicopters will depart from Marine Corps Air Station Futenma today in order to support the operational combat deployment of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit,” the release stated. “The 31st MEU is executing an immediate deployment order from the U.S. Secretary of Defense for combat operations in U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“CH-53Ds represent the MEU’s heavy- lift capability,” the statement continued. “Inclusion of these assets for the deployment is required to ensure that the commander is prepared to execute assigned missions across a wide spectrum of contingency operations.”

The release stressed that “the results of an essential phase of the investigation into the cause of the August 13, CH-53D Sea Stallion mishap in Ginowan City, have led to the determination that the cause was solely unique to the CH-53D involved.”

The initial findings indicate that a “small retaining device in a subcomponent of the tail rotor assembly was missing, leading to a loss of tail rotor control,” according to the press release.

Debris from the helicopter fell over a residential neighborhood in the immediate area, damaging buildings and vehicles; no civilian injuries were reported. The school was on summer break at the time.

“The Marine Corps takes safety on the air and ground very seriously,” the Marine news release stated. “During the investigation of the cause of the accident, all CH-53D Sea Stallion flights had been temporarily suspended. Every CH-53D helicopter has since been thoroughly inspected for safety and cleared to resume mission essential flights.”

However, a Marine Corps spokeswoman said Sunday afternoon, the Sea Stallions still at MCAS Futenma “remain in suspended status.”

The Marines declined to disclose how many helicopters remain at the Futenma facility.

Okinawa officials’ reaction to the flight of the Sea Stallions was swift.

“The Okinawa Prefectural Government filed a protest with the Marines at 1:05 p.m.,” said Tadanobu Higa, chief of the prefecture’s military affairs office. “It was only yesterday that the governor strongly requested [the Marines] hold all flight operations at the air station.

“Despite his request, the same type of helicopter that crashed has resumed operations,” Higa said. “Such conduct grates against the sensibilities of the Okinawa people and is absolutely not acceptable.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also filed a protest in Tokyo.

“It is extremely regrettable that the United States has resumed use of the CH-53D despite the opposition of the Japanese government,” read a MOFA statement. “We strongly protest the use of this model when there has been no proper explanation of the cause of the accident, nor of steps taken to prevent recurrence.”

Ginowan Mayor Yoichi Iha held a news conference Sunday afternoon.

“It was very shocking and stunning to see the helicopters fly out of the air station,” Iha said.

“Because it was only yesterday that General Blackman assured Governor Inamine that flight operations at the air station would be minimal, I took it for granted that the CH-53D helicopters would remain grounded,” he said. “In the midst of all of the protests on Okinawa, this is like pouring oil into a fire.”

Iha said Sunday’s flights showed that “to pursue their mission, the residents of Okinawa are not in [the Marines’] minds at all.

“Such conduct shows that the military regards Okinawa still under military control, disrespecting Japan’s sovereignty,” he read from a prepared statement. “Ginowan City has repeatedly file protests against the accident and demanded a halt to all flight operations. No matter under what circumstances, it is absolutely unacceptable for the military helicopters to fly over our community.”

He demanded an end to all flights at the air station; that the helicopters deploying with the 31st MEU not return to the base and that remaining helicopters be moved to “Hawaii or other military bases;” and that the U.S. and Japanese governments “immediately start negotiations on the closure of the air station.”

—Chiyomi Sumida contributed to this report.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=23988


Ellie

[thedrifter]

'Courage to Care' Launches Help for Returning Combatants, Families
By Rudi Williams
American Forces Press Service

BETHESDA, Md., Aug. 24, 2004 – A team of experts in military medicine and health communication at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences here launched a new health education campaign today -- "Courage to Care."

In particular, Courage to Care is aimed at helping combatants reintegrate back into their families after surviving the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. In general, the campaign is geared toward the entire Defense Department community -- active duty servicemembers and members of the National Guard and Reserve and their families, as well as the health and community providers who serve them.

Courage to Care consists of ready-to-use fact sheets written for physician providers, as well as servicemen and women, on topics about military life and health. The fact sheets are in the public domain, intended for distribution to provider networks, and can be customized with a site's local contact information and resources.

The first of two fact sheets is titled "Reintegration Roadmap – Shared Sense of Purpose," and is for the health and social service provider. Its companion sheet, "Becoming a Couple Again, Creating a Shared Sense of Purpose," is for military couples experiencing the transition.

The content derives from interviews conducted by the university's health professionals with affected servicemembers and families who have experienced combat stress and family separation. The fact sheets describe the reintegration challenges and offer a step-by-step process to help affected individuals re-establish their relationship as a couple and as a family.

Nancy Vineburgh, assistant professor of psychiatry, coined the campaign's name to convey the courage to care from military doctors, psychiatrists and counselors. It also conveys the courage to care that military families and communities must assume in caring for their own health.

Vineburgh, who has worked on national public education, health education and health promotion campaigns, designed the fact sheets to be concise, contemporary and attractive. That in turn should facilitate and sustain the health dialogue between provider and the military servicemen and women on the receiving end.

She said Army Col. Charles Serio, the university's brigade commander, sent a copy of the fact sheet to a relative just returned from the battlefield who commented that it made so much sense. "His wife said it was attractive enough to put on their refrigerator to remind them in the months ahead of the 'relationship makers and relationship breakers' outlined in the fact sheet," Vineburgh said.

"People tend to read and hold onto information that is attractive," Vineburgh noted. "These are issues that won't go away overnight. Our team wanted to address not just the issues, but the process of healing and recovery."

The university-based Courage to Care program is the brainchild of retired Air Force Dr. (Col.) Robert J. Ursano, professor and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and director of the university's Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress.

Ursano was prompted to establish the program after receiving an e-mail message from a young woman whose brother, a member of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., was returning home for two weeks of rest and recuperation in November 2003, according to Air Force Dr. (Col.) Molly Hall, an associate professor of psychiatry.

The woman wanted to know how the family should prepare to welcome her brother home from the battlefields of Iraq. She also wanted to know what issues the family should understand before he arrived to diffuse any combat trauma he might have suffered.

"That e-mail wound its way to us," Hall noted. "Out of that request came the first health fact sheet on coming home for service members and their families on reunion."

Hall said that first fact sheet on reintegration was posted on the center's Web site in advance of Courage to Care becoming a university-wide campaign.

Ursano said that Courage to Care speaks to the family's need and recognizes their energy, effort and caring. "Whether it's taking care of a soldier who's lost his legs or whether it's taking care of a child with chronic diabetes, we forget what it means and how much energy a families goes to those activities," said the retired Air Force colonel. "It requires their courage to face it every day in order to manage those types of health problems."

"Courage to Care is an extension of our work in educating health providers and to enhance their communication with military and their families," Ursano noted. He also directs the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, which began in the 1980s. It is a public/private partnership of the university and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine. With its home in the Department of Psychiatry, the center is sponsored by multiple departments at the uniformed services university.

The Jackson foundation is dedicated to improving military medicine and public health. The private, not-for-profit organization helps military personnel conduct quality medical research and education programs. Since its creation, the center has been involved in nearly every large-scale disaster the nation has faced, said Ursano, the first chair of the American Psychiatric Association's Taskforce on Disaster Psychiatry.

"We are a central repository of information about mental health and behavioral issues related to disaster, trauma and terrorism," Ursano noted.

He said the center's earliest work included the Army's largest peacetime loss on Dec. 12, 1985, when a chartered DC-8 plane carrying 248 members of the 101st Airborne Division crashed during takeoff at Gander, Newfoundland. Center personnel were also involved when the 185th Fighter Wing of the Iowa Air National Guard was the first responders after United Airlines Flight 232 crashed and cartwheeled down the runway at Sioux City Airport on July 19, 1989. More than 100 people were killed, but 185 people aboard survived.

When devastating earthquakes hit Armenia on Dec. 7, 1988, the center set up a satellite bridge network to provide consultation into Armenia, where more than 25,000 people died, and over 500,000 lost their homes. The center also provided consultation after earthquakes in San Francisco, the embassy bombings in Africa, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Ursano noted.

"In each of these settings, we've been involved in providing consultation, education or research," he said. "Most often it is all three. That is part of a working relationship and those we work with teach us. This develops the lessons learned to be used in the future to help others."

Vineburgh said, "There's a lot of health information out there, but it is often imbedded in comprehensive, health information Web sites. We wanted something simple and direct that could be used in provider offices as a take away for the military family or service member. The university provides access to some of the nation's leading military medicine experts and providers, and we wanted to bring that expertise to the DoD community."

Topics in future issues will include, "Workplace Re-entry of Guard and Reserve," "Deployment Impact on Children and Families," "Women's Health During Deployment," and "Talking About Injury With Spouse and Family."

Courage to Care fact sheets can be downloaded from the uniformed university's Web site. For more information, call 301-295-2470.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

IRAQ IN TRANSITION: CASUALTIES



Illinois man turned life around to join Marines

By Sean D. Hamill
Special to the Tribune
Published August 24, 2004

Three years ago, when he was 27, Christopher W. Belchik made major changes in his life so he could realize his childhood dream of joining the Marines.

"It was quite a struggle for him to get into the Marines," his father, Stephen, said of the Alton, Ill., native.

"He had dropped out of high school his senior year, so he had to get his GED. And he had to lose a lot of weight--about 30 pounds in 45 days--to reach the Marines."

He reached both marks and joined the Marines three years ago, a move that bolstered Belchik's newfound confidence.

"Really, his turnaround was due to his wife," his father said, "or now `widow,' I should say."

Cpl. Belchik, 30, was killed on Sunday due to enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, from Camp Lejeune, N.C.

His family was told by Marine officials that Belchik was killed by an explosion during a firefight, but they were given few other details of his death.

Growing up in Alton, Belchik, the youngest of three children, had often talked about joining the Marines.

But, unhappy with high school, he dropped out his senior year and began a series of jobs that were always rigorous, including working as a bus boy in restaurants and, most recently, as a hod carrier hoisting mortar for bricklayers during construction season.

"He was never afraid of work," said his uncle, Tom Belchik.

But while he kept working and trying to beat his father at golf, Belchik realized the life he once hoped for was passing him by.

"He decided he didn't want to [be a hod carrier] the rest of his life," Tom Belchik said.

In 1998, he met and started dating Mary Hamberg.

"We just couldn't believe when he met her, the turnaround in him," his father said. "She gave him purpose and gave him goals."

With her support, he decided to pursue joining the Marines, despite the good-natured teasing from the Navy veterans in his family, which include his father, grandfather and a cousin.

"We gave him a bad time about going in the Marines," his father recalled.

He got more ribbing in basic training where he was stuck with the nickname "Old Man" by the throngs of 18-year-olds he trained with.

In a 2001 interview with Leatherneck, a Marine magazine, Belchik gushed when asked about the tough infantry training he was enduring.

"I've always wanted to be with the infantry, and this is like living out a childhood dream," he told the magazine, noting he really admired his instructors, many of whom were younger than he. "They do a good job. They're stern when they need to be."

The training changed him physically from a 5-foot-10-inch man who was always strong, if not fit, into "a brick wall," his uncle said.

More important, his future was wide open.

"I just think he knew that Marines would give him the discipline he needed and wanted," his uncle said, "and when he got out his options were unlimited."

In June 2003, Belchik and Hamberg married at St. Peter and Paul Church in Alton, with Belchik in Marine dress blues.

"It seemed he had all his loose ropes tied up the last time I saw him," Tom Belchik said, recalling the wedding day.

Belchik called home on Friday to wish his wife a happy birthday, his father said, "and she said he seemed in good spirits."

Belchik had not decided what to do to after his tour with the Marines ended, but his family was hoping it was near home.

"He was due to come home in October, hopefully for good," his father said. "And now it is for good."
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0408240203aug24,1,3035292.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Two Power Brokers Collide in Iraq
By JOHN F. BURNS

Published: August 22, 2004


BAGHDAD, Iraq — In Iraq, of late, it has been a tale of two cities, and of two men of vaulting ambition, each seeking a path to power in the Iraq that will emerge, some day, from the turmoil that has followed the downfall of Saddam Hussein.

In Najaf, Moktada al-Sadr has shown how a portly cleric with a dedicated militia and an artful grasp of Shiite street politics can confront American power. In Baghdad, Ayad Allawi, also portly and Shiite, but secular and backed by American tanks, has used his place as Iraq's interim prime minister to warn Mr. Sadr that the time for his insurrection is running out. Adding to the drama, the two men have joined in conflict over Najaf's Imam Ali Mosque, the holiest shrine in the 1,300 years since the Shiite breakaway that followed the Prophet Muhammad's death.



As the week ended, the confrontation had neither exploded nor subsided. There were signs that Mr. Sadr was seeking a way to back out, sparing himself and his fighters annihilation, and saving what he had sought all along - an enhancement of his claim to have defended his fellow Shiites' faith and pride.

Dr. Allawi, committed to ousting Mr. Sadr and disarming his Mahdi Army but aware that storming the shrine would be a heinous blot on the reputation of any Shiite politician, seemed also to be reaching for a mediated solution, an outcome sure to be favored by Dr. Allawi's patrons in Washington, for whom a bloody showdown in Najaf was likely to be still more unpalatable.

Messy times favor messy solutions. Even Iraqis who sigh for the brute simplicities of life under Saddam Hussein, as many now do, have not forgotten what he did when he, too, was confronted by an armed occupation of the Imam Ali shrine, during the Shiite uprising that followed the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

Tyrannical as he was, Mr. Hussein understood that compromise served him better than soldiers blasting through the shrine's massive gates and walls. After firing rockets, he whispered that chemical weapons might be next, and the rebels fled the mosque. Later, many were carried off to be executed and buried in mass graves.

In his harsher moments, Dr. Allawi may wish that Mr. Sadr is killed in Najaf, as might American troops who have fought the Mahdi Army through the crypts and catafalques of the vast cemetery adjoining the shrine, and down the sinuous streets and alleyways of Najaf's old city; at least nine American marines and soldiers have died, along with at least 400 of Mr. Sadr's fighters, according to the official American count.

But assaulting the shrine, even with the lead taken by Iraqi troops, would be likely to cause an explosion among the Shiite majority. And Mr. Sadr, dead, would be at least as much of a problem for Mr. Allawi's government - and for the Americans - as he has been alive.

Martyrdom is central to Shiite beliefs, and Mr. Sadr's legions would in time be marshaled by another tribune of the streets. The pattern has been set by Mr. Sadr himself, who built his following on the 1998 assassination in Najaf - by agents of Mr. Hussein, most Iraqis believe - of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadeq al-Sadr, Mr. Sadr's venerated father.

To the Shiite underclass that is his prime constituency, it has mattered little that the younger Mr. Sadr is a religious upstart, a junior cleric in his early 30's who has spared himself hard years of seminary study. Still less, it seems, do followers weigh his indictment as the mastermind of the murder of a rival cleric, Abdul Majid al-Khoei, who flew home from exile in the days immediately after the American capture of Baghdad 16 months ago only to be stabbed and shot to death outside the Najaf shrine.

While Mr. Sadr has sought to construct his political future on the back of armed rebellion - in Najaf, in the populous Baghdad slum of Sadr City (named for his father) and in a constellation of towns and cities across southern Iraq, all the way to Basra - Dr. Allawi has placed his bets on the constitutional road to power.

Due process was not always his métier, as Iraqis who knew him as a young medical student on the Baghdad University campus in the 1970's recall. Then, these people say, Dr. Allawi, who qualified as a neurosurgeon, was a zealot for Mr. Hussein's ruling Baath Party, a man who carried a gun, threatened fellow students and was feared as a regime enforcer.



His reputation as a hard man was one reason, perhaps the main one, he became a protégé in exile of the Central Intelligence Agency, and then the favored American candidate for prime minister of the interim government appointed in the spring, shortly before Iraq regained sovereignty on June 28.

In office, he has reinforced his image as a man with an iron fist, visiting Baghdad cellblocks to view captured rebels accused of ambushes, bombings and kidnappings. He has urged policemen and prison guards, bluntly, to show no quarter. He has reintroduced the death penalty, which the Americans suspended last year, and made it applicable to almost any rebel action, even those that do not result in killing.

But while his is hardly the profile of a man with an instinctive feel for the give and take of democracy, Dr. Allawi is wedded to a political blueprint for Iraq that was drawn up under American guidance in the period of formal occupation. This required, first, the appointment of the provisional government Dr. Allawi now heads; second, the convening of a national conference to appoint a 100-member council to oversee the government, review its decrees and call its ministers to account until a National Assembly can be elected. The Assembly is to draw up a permanent constitution, ratify it and lead the country to a fully elected government by January 2006.

While events were moving to a climax in Najaf, the conference met in Baghdad, offering a glimpse of the kind of country this might be if democratic ideals prevail. The proceedings were chaotic, disrupted by tensions over the battles in Najaf, and were compromised by backroom deals that saw organized blocs, religious and secular, securing representation on the new council to the exclusion of smaller, independent groups.

Still, it was the most representative gathering held here for at least 40 years, its members elected in caucuses from every corner of the country. Its very clamor proved how eager Iraqis are, after decades of repression, to have a voice in the remaking of their country.

Just getting 1,100 delegates to Baghdad for the conference, and keeping them safe for the four days of the gathering, was a triumph of sorts for Dr. Allawi's government and its American patrons, considering the shooting gallery that much of the country - and Baghdad itself - have become in recent months. But throwing a cordon of concrete and steel around a conference hall is a far cry, logistically and politically, from the next steps in the constitutional blueprint, the three rounds of national elections scheduled for next year.

The first, by Jan. 31, will choose the assembly that will appoint a new transitional government, and draw up the new constitution. In all this, Dr. Allawi and Mr. Sadr, and the poles they represent in the march to a new Iraq, seem likely to find themselves opponents once again, whatever the outcome of the immediate confrontation in Najaf.

One American official took the optimistic view: that the debate in Baghdad and the battle in Najaf were two sides of the same coin, Iraqis struggling to make their weight felt. The task for those who want a democratic Iraq, he said, was to draw the men with guns - Mr. Sadr's and the insurgents who have turned the Sunni heartland into a war zone - into the political arena. He cited approvingly a conference delegate who had said that all Iraqis, insurgents included, were seeking the same end.

"We are all working to get the Americans to leave," the official quoted the delegate as saying. "Some of us are doing this quietly, and some are doing it violently. But we are all working to the same end."

continued...........

[thedrifter]

It was this perception that seemed to have inspired the peace proposal put to Mr. Sadr's representatives by the political and religious figures who flew to Najaf on behalf of the conference. In return for disbanding the Mahdi Army and vacating the shrine, they offered an amnesty for his fighters, and an opening for Mr. Sadr to participate in the political process "in any way he may choose."



Dr. Allawi, too hard-headed to have thought it likely, put the same proposition in his ultimatum to Mr. Sadr, telling him that his choice was to be forced from the shrine in battle, or to disarm his militia and contest elections.

In the end, this seemed to have been more an American than an Iraqi idea. Indeed, most Iraqis seemed to think it chimerical that any of the men who have cast Iraq into the convulsions of war, in the name of Islam or of Saddam Hussein or of wounded Iraqi pride, could be persuaded, by force of argument or arms, to abandon their arms now and take to the hustings.

If there has been one message written in all that the insurgents have done, whether Sunnis or Shiites, these Iraqis say, it is a rejection of the very idea that Iraq's future can be chosen under an American military umbrella - more broadly, of the idea that America and its notions should have any place in reshaping Iraq at all.

When they were done with their spinning, senior Western officials who briefed reporters on the developments in Najaf seemed to agree. Najaf, one said bluntly, represented as crucial a juncture as America has faced in Iraq: one from which Iraq could proceed, with the emasculation of Mr. Sadr's rebellion, to a new period in which Iraqi politicians, not gunmen, could begin to set the country's agenda; or, conversely, if the government became resigned to leaving Mr. Sadr's militia still rooted in the city, to a further slide into chaos.

"If the government takes a hit in Najaf, it would encourage the various armed groups to stand up and say, 'O.K., Najaf belongs to us,' 'Falluja belongs to us,' 'Ramadi belongs to us,' 'Samarra belongs to us,' " the official said. In that case, he said, what would be left would not be a country with an accepted constitution and elections, but a "Lebanon-ization," a fracturing into separate, warlord-ruled fiefs, with the gun supplanting the rule of law.

Retreating into the orotund language favored by diplomats, he suggested that this was hardly what America intended when it came here promising Iraqis something far better than Saddam Hussein. "With different militias controlling different cities, that obviously doesn't promise the political stability Iraq needs," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/weekinreview/22burn.html?pagewanted=3


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Air Guard Squadron Makes Mark in Operation Iraqi Freedom
By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24, 2004 – The most recent deployment for the Air National Guard's 107th Fighter Squadron was one of firsts, the unit's commander said here today.

Lt. Col. Glenn Schmidt said the 107th became the first F-16 Fighting Falcon unit to be based in Iraq when it established its base in Kirkuk when it deployed for three months in February. It also was the first F-16 unit to employ the Theater Airborne Reconnaissance System, or TARS, as well as the first to employ the Litening advanced targeting pod, he added.

TARS collects intelligence information from the battlefield's second echelon and beyond, in adverse weather and all light conditions. Litening, a multipurpose targeting and navigation system, gives tactical aircraft 24-hour precision-strike capability against both land and sea-based targets.

Weapons officer Lt. Col. Nate Dickman, pilots Lt. Col. Leonard Isabelle and Maj. Brian Bracken and maintenance operations officer Maj. David Spehar joined Schmidt at the Pentagon to discuss the firsts and their mission in Iraq.

When the squadron – based at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Mich. -- got word it was being sent to Iraq, it was in the middle of close-air support training. The squadron flies mostly CAS and reconnaissance missions.

The combination of TARS and Litening allowed the group to be flexible in its mission. Not only could the F-16s help ground troops out of sticky situations, they could do reconnaissance at the same time, the officers said.

For example, Bracken said, if the unit was called upon to hit a target, the TARS pod on one F-16 would take "before" and "after" images to document exactly what kind and how much damage was done. Images taken while flying CAS missions were also used to update maps used for planning ingress and egress routes. The images were processed within 30 minutes of landing. TARS will have data-link capability for real-time imaging sometime next year, Schmidt said.

The squadron didn't have planned targets, Schmidt said. Missions were driven by need, and were mostly reactive in nature, he added.

"We quickly became (the ground troops') No. 1 go-to squadron for support," he said. "They would ask for us by name."

When the squadron was told it was being sent to Iraq, the call for volunteers went out. Schmidt said there were more volunteers than spots to be filled and there was no need to mobilize anyone. The 107th finally deployed with 280 personnel and 10 aircraft. "I didn't want to take additional people and put them in harm's way," Schmidt said. The group racked up around 3,000 flight hours in more than 800 sorties.

Spehar said that during the three-month deployment, about a year's worth of flying was logged. This required another first for an F-16 unit: heavy maintenance while deployed in a war zone.

To keep the sand from doing more damage than the repairs were doing good, the maintenance crew used hardened aircraft shelters, Spehar said. He added that Selfridge and a Air National Guard unit based in Richmond, Va. -- the only other Air Guard unit to have the TARS pods -- are constantly writing and rewriting guidelines for field maintenance.

In addition to their close air support and reconnaissance successes in Iraq, one fact made the squadron's largest deployment since the Korean War especially successful: Everyone came home.

Most of the 107th arrived home June 4. By June 10, all deployed squadron members were back in Michigan.

Related Sites:
127th Wing, Michigan Air National Guard
F-16 Fighting Falcon
Litening Advanced Targeting Pod



Ellie

[thedrifter]

Soldiers' Iraq Blogs Face Military Scrutiny

Aug. 24, 2004 -- Military officials are cracking down on blogs written by soldiers and Marines in Iraq, saying some of them reveal sensitive information. Critics say it's an attempt to suppress unflattering truths about the U.S. occupation. NPR's Eric Niiler reports.

Army Spc. Colby Buzzell, stationed near Mosul with the First Battallion, 23rd Regiment, says he began his My War Web log to help combat boredom. "I'm just writing about my experiences," Buzzell says. "I'm pretty much putting my diary on the Internet -- that's all it is."

Buzzell says he has avoided describing sensitive information, such as U.S. weapons capabilities, weaknesses and scheduling. But earlier this month, Buzzell was lectured by commanders about violating operational security. Two other popular blogs run by soldiers have been shut down recently.

Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a spokesman for Buzzell's unit, said Buzzell's blog now has to be reviewed by his platoon sergeant and a superior officer. In an e-mail to NPR, Hastings said the popularity of blogging has increased the chance that soldiers may inadvertently give away information to Internet-savvy enemies.

But some critics worry that military officials are trying to muffle dissent from troops in the field. "I really think it has much less to do with operational security and classified secrets and more to do with American politics and how the war is seen by a public that is getting increasingly shaky about the overall venture," says Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.


http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3867981


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Iraqi Guardsmen Ring Najaf Shrine
Tuesday, August 24, 2004

NAJAF, Iraq — A Shiite insurgency appeared to be weakening Tuesday night as Iraqi forces moved to within 200 yards of the revered Imam Ali Shrine (search) and Iraq's defense minister once again demanded fighters loyal to a radical cleric surrender or face a violent raid.

The militant force, which once waged fierce battles with U.S. troops throughout the Old City and Najaf's vast cemetery, seemed considerably diminished in number and less aggressive after days of U.S. airstrikes and relentless artillery pounding.

In Baghdad, assailants bombed the convoys of two government ministers in separate attacks that killed five people and a bomber, but left the ministers unharmed, officials said.

Hundreds of insurgents have been spotted leaving Najaf (search) in recent days, witnesses said. Those that remained appeared to have pulled back to the area around the shrine, where the fighting Tuesday was concentrated, U.S. troops said.

Police say radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (search), who has not been seen in public for days, has fled the city.

His aides, however, vigorously denied that, saying al-Sadr was in a secret hideout here. Regardless, the fiery, charismatic cleric's absence from the battlefield may have withered his followers' morale.

U.S. warplanes bombed the Old City late Tuesday for the third night in a row, witnesses reported. Huge blasts rumbled throughout the city for about 10 minutes followed by gunbattles and smaller explosions.

Earlier in the day, fierce fighting broke out near the shrine compound, with rockets launched from U.S. helicopters kicking up clouds of smoke and debris. Bradley fighting vehicles patrolling the nearly deserted, bullet-scarred streets attacked militants, who responded with mortar fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

"We are under constant enemy small-arms, mortar, and RPG attack," said U.S. Lt. Chris Kent, whose unit was about 300 yards from the compound. "U.S. forces are consolidating positions to allow for future operations. Morale is very high."

Iraqi forces, accompanying U.S. troops into the Old City for the first time in recent days, combed through the neighborhood, approaching as close as 200 yards to the shrine, controlled by militants loyal to al-Sadr.

Both the Iraqi government and the U.S. military say no military moves are being made without the approval of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan, addressing Iraqi National Guard troops in Najaf, said Tuesday that Iraqi forces would head toward the shrine "tonight" to await the signal for a raid or the capitulation of the militants.

"When your brothers approach the holy shrine compound, they will direct calls of mercy to those (militants) to surrender," Shaalan told the troops. "They have hours to surrender."

By late Tuesday, there was no indication Iraqi forces had advanced on the shrine.

Shaalan made a similar threat a week ago, saying the government could raid the shrine by the end of the day last Wednesday to free it of "its vile occupation." The government later backed down and said it would work for a peaceful solution.

Any raid on the shrine, the holiest Shiite site in the country, risked igniting a massive Shiite rebellion throughout Iraq against the fledgling interim government, already battling a persistent and bloody Sunni insurgency.

"I tell Shaalan to throw his new declaration in the same garbage that he already threw his earlier declarations in," al-Sadr aide Sheik Aws al-Khafaji told Al-Jazeera television.

But other al-Sadr lieutenants reiterated their appeal for talks, a request the government has repeatedly rejected.

"We are ready to negotiate to end this crisis and the suffering of our persecuted people ... but this government doesn't want negotiations," said Sheik Ali Smeisim, a senior al-Sadr aide.

The militants have repeatedly accused U.S. forces of damaging the shrine during the fighting. The U.S. military accused the militants of launching attacks from holy sites, but said it has restrained itself from attacking those positions.

The military released aerial photos Tuesday purportedly showing a complete militant mortar system set up just outside the shrine compound.

Iraqi officials have said that any raid on the shrine would be conducted by Iraqi forces, since the presence of U.S. troops at the holy site would future inflame Shiites here.

In other violence, clashes between British forces and al-Sadr militants in the southern city of Amarah killed eight people and injured 18 others, said Dr. Saad Hemood, of the Zahrawi General Hospital.

The fighting started when militants attacked a British foot patrol with small arms and fired mortar rounds at a building housing British troops, residents said.

Residents said British warplanes bombed the city, but Squadron leader Spike Wilson, a British military spokesman, said no planes were used in Amarah and he had no reports of coalition casualties.

In southern Baghdad, a car bomb exploded in the Qadisiyah neighborhood as Environment Minister Miskhat Moumin was passing through in a convoy, ministry spokeswoman Dalal Ali said. Moumin escaped unharmed, Ali said.

Four bodyguards were killed in that blast and two other people were injured, Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said. A bomber was also killed.

In a second attack about the same time in the western Baghdad district of al-Khadra, a roadside bomb exploded beside Education Minister Sami Mudhafar's convoy, killing one of his bodyguards and wounding two others, police said.

The convoy was heading to work at the time and the minister was not injured, a bodyguard who survived the attack said on condition of anonymity.

In a statement posted on an Islamic Web site, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group purportedly claimed responsibility for the attack on Moumin. The claim's authenticity could not be verified.

Insurgents have repeatedly targeted top officials for assassination, accusing them of collaborating with U.S. forces here.

Also in Baghdad, assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. patrol on Monday night, killing one soldier and wounding two others, the military said Tuesday. A second soldier was killed early Tuesday near Fallujah when the vehicle he was in rolled over, the military said. As of Monday, 958 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

Also Tuesday, a militant group calling itself "The Islamic Army in Iraq" said it had kidnapped Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni and could not guarantee his safety unless Italy announced within 48 hours it would withdraw its 3,000 troops, according to a video and statement sent to Al-Jazeera.

Italy said its troops would remain, but it would work for Baldoni's release.

"We are committed to obtaining the freedom of Mr. Baldoni, who is in Iraq for private work as a journalist and therefore absolutely not connected to our government," Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's office said in a statement.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,129810,00.html


Ellie