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thedrifter
09-20-04, 06:54 AM
Posted on Sun, Sep. 19, 2004





Fallujah a 'cancer,' Marines say

By Anne Barnard

BOSTON GLOBE


FALLUJAH, Iraq - Six months after U.S. Marines arrived with a promise to win over this rebel stronghold through intense outreach and focused military strikes, the city is "a cancer" that threatens to spread chaos around the country, Marine commanders say in frank assessments.

Shootouts among rival gangs punctuate the nights.

Insurgents also export violence to the rest of Iraq, and they impose religious restrictions on the population.

The rebel-held city is risky to ignore, but a fight to bring it under control could blacken the image of the U.S.-backed government, and no Iraqi force is ready to maintain security there afterward.

That is the Marines' view of Fallujah, from their main base on the outskirts of the city.

Even as they pledge to solve the problem before national elections set for January, top Marine commanders in Iraq acknowledge they are facing many of the same problems that they hoped to solve in April -- yet the insurgents are more entrenched now and U.S. forces are even less popular.

The Iraqi government has pledged to seize control of trouble spots such as Fallujah, but any attempt must take into account the lessons learned when the U.S. military and civilian occupation authority tried to impose order in April.

The biggest mistake the Marines cite is the stop-and-go assault on Fallujah, in which they were ordered to take the city, then told to halt their advance three days later -- abandoning their original plans for a softer, more diplomatic approach yet stopping short of a decisive victory.

Now, in sovereign Iraq, a major attack by U.S. forces would be even less palatable, but Marine commanders say Iraqi security forces are not ready to lead an all-out assault.

After he took command last Sunday of the First Marine Expeditionary Force and its 42,000 troops in many of Iraq's toughest areas, from Fallujah and Ramadi west of Baghdad to trouble spots south of the capital, Lt. Gen. John Sattler declared, "The status quo in Fallujah cannot stand."

Sattler said Marines were capable of taking over Fallujah in a matter of days.

"We could arm the 1,000-pound grizzly bear and take it into town," he said.

Instead, Marine commanders said their mission is to support Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's government.

They said Allawi plans to issue an ultimatum to Fallujah as soon as Iraqi security forces from other parts of the country are ready to lead an assault on the city and maintain security there once it is subdued.

Fallujah's leaders must "either join the rest of Iraq in sharing the progress toward freedom and hopefully democracy, or if they choose not to do so, they become a problem for the government and he will have to take dramatic action," Lt. Gen. James Conway, the outgoing commander, said of Allawi.

"It's a question for the prime minister of how long he wants the cancer that Fallujah has become to potentially infect the rest of this region."

The only hope, Conway said, is to bring in police from Baghdad or units such as the new Iraqi Army's 36th Battalion, which U.S. commanders say has fought cohesively against rebels in Najaf and elsewhere.

Conway said military planners are likely to take the same "fire approach" around the country, bringing Iraqis from other regions to fight insurgents in places like Samarra and Baqouba.

The top U.S. operational commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, said on a visit to Camp Fallujah that Fallujah may soon see a campaign similar to one in Samarra, where troops from the Army's First Infantry Division entered the city last week for the first time after weeks of insurgent control.

"Everyone said Samarra was the next Fallujah," Metz said.

"But right now the First ID moves in and out of Samarra. We are re-establishing the police stations with Iraqi leadership.

"There will be some more fights ... Everyone reports there's chaos, but when the sun comes up in the morning the coalition has regained control."

Yet the Marines' experience in Fallujah offers a caution for the Iraqi government.

Marines are by far the strongest fighting force in the region yet politically unable to win over residents through force alone.

And their attempts to set up Iraqi forces have been plagued by rampant attacks on those forces and widespread suspicion among Marines on the front lines that they are not trustworthy.

Now, the Marines find themselves starting from scratch in several places, after some of their dearest projects were scuttled by insurgent pressure.

In Haditha, a city that had been relatively peaceful, a program in which Marines lived and worked with Iraqi police in their station -- modeled on a Vietnam-era counterinsurgency program -- was called off recently after the police station was bombed.

Living with Marines proved too risky for the Iraqi police, who received numerous death threats.

In Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, Governor Abdelkarim Burgis Rawi, who had worked with U.S. officials for more than a year, resigned at the demand of insurgents who had kidnapped his three sons.

He also apologized on television for working with the United States.

In Fallujah, the Iraqi National Guard commander who had cooperated most closely with Marines was executed by militants.

His battalion, unlike others, had not fled during the April fighting.

The Marines blame the setbacks in part on political decisions made far up the chain of command.

Senior Marine officers also said they underestimated the strength of the insurgency in Fallujah and did not get the results they wanted when they tried to turn over control of the city to a group of former officers from there to end the April crisis.

"I'm not sure we understood the harshness of the city, the harshness of the elements operating within it," said Chief of Staff Colonel John Coleman, the second in command to Sattler.

He described a complex, delicate situation inside Fallujah.

The one benefit of pulling out, he said, has been to force rival rebel gangs to turn on one another once they were no longer united against the attacking Marines.

"Foreign fighters were operating in three- to five-man cells all over the city," Coleman said.

"With the start of the Fallujah Brigades, we saw the people of Fallujah start to isolate the foreign fighters. We took advantage of that and targeted them."

Airstrikes and skirmishes on the outskirts have killed hundreds of foreign fighters, he estimated.

"They're now looking over their shoulders."

Fallujah doctors have said the airstrikes have killed many women and children.

Because Fallujah is a dangerous place for reporters, the competing assertions are nearly impossible to verify.

Conway said the Fallujah Brigades, which took over in late April, failed for the same reason they were initially successful.

While their tribal ties gave them enough credibility to calm the fighting, they also prevented them from taking aggressive action against their kinsmen.

But bringing in outsiders could dangerously inflame ethnic tensions.

In April, when an Iraqi Army unit with many Kurdish members fought in Fallujah, many Sunni Arabs protested that "peshmerga" -- the Kurdish militia -- had been let loose on the Fallujah population.

Meanwhile, Iraqis say the only way to calm the insurgency is for U.S. troops to leave the cities. Coleman said there is nothing he would like better.

"We'd like to be Zorro-like: You don't know where we come from, you don't know where we live, we're quick to put a 'Z' on the chest of the problem and then disappear," he said.

But, he cautioned, Fallujah is "a microcosm of what Iraq would be without multinational forces here."

After six months working with Conway, Coleman plans to stay on as second in command to Sattler for as long as he is needed.

"I'll be damned if when I'm 65 I'm going to be sitting on the redwood deck of my double-wide and read some snot-nosed grad school thesis about another failed U.S. foreign policy example in the early part of the century," he said.

"I'll die staying here so I don't have to read that."

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/9704956.htm?1c


Ellie

thedrifter
09-20-04, 06:55 AM
Attacks disillusion Marines

By Mike Dorning
Chicago Tribune

RAMADI, Iraq — Marine Cpl. Travis Friedrichsen, a sandy-haired 21-year-old from Denison, Iowa, used to take Tootsie Rolls and lollipops out of care packages from home and give them to Iraqi children. Not anymore.

"My whole opinion of the people here has changed. There aren't any good people," said Friedrichsen, who says his first instinct now is to scan even youngsters' hands for weapons.

The subtle hostility extends to Iraqi adults, evidence some U.S. troops have second thoughts about their role here.

"We're out here giving our lives for these people," said Sgt. Jesse Jordan, 25, of Grove Hill, Ala. "You'd think they'd show some gratitude. Instead, they don't seem to care."

When new troops rotated into Iraq early in the spring, the military portrayed the second stage of the occupation as a peacekeeping operation focused at least as much on reconstruction as on mopping up rebel resistance.

Even in strongholds of the Sunni insurgency such as Ramadi, a restive provincial capital west of Baghdad, the Marine Corps sent in its units with a mission to win over the people as well as smite the enemy. Commanders worked to instill sympathy for the local population through sensitivity training and exhortations from higher officers.

Marines were ordered to show friendliness through "wave tactics," including waving at people on the street.

Few spend much time waving these days as the hard reality of frequent hit-and-run attacks, roadside bombs and exploding mortars has left plenty of Marines, particularly grunts on the ground, disillusioned and bitter.

Since the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, deployed in the area six months ago, 34 of its members have died and more than a quarter of the 1,000-member unit has been wounded.




Along with the heavy toll, the Marines cite other sources of frustration. High among them is the scarcity of tips from Iraqis on the locations of the roadside bombs that kill and maim Marines, even though the explosives frequently are placed in well-trafficked areas where bomb teams probably would be observed.

Sgt. Curtis Neill remembers a rocket-propelled grenade attack on his platoon as it passed some shops one hot August day. When the Marines responded, the attacker fled, but they found that he had established a comfortable and obvious position to lie in wait.

There, in an alleyway beside the shops, was a seat and ammunition for the grenade launcher — along with a pitcher of water and a half-eaten bowl of grapes, said Neill, who was so amazed that he took photos of the setup.

"You could tell the guy had been hanging out all day. It was out in the open. Every single one of the guys in the shops could tell the guy was set up to attack us," said Neill, 34, of Colrain, Mass. "That's the problem. That's why I'm bitter toward the people."

Then there are the hostile glares that adults in the community give to passing U.S. military patrols, and treachery from high-profile allies, such as the provincial police chief who was arrested last month amid strong suspicions that he was working with the insurgency.

"We're not taking any chances: Shoot first and ask questions later," said Lance Cpl. David Goward, 26, a machine gunner from Cloquet, Minn. "We're a lot more dangerous now. I'm not going home in a body bag, and neither is the person next to me."

Some Marines say the sense that their presence is unappreciated calls into question the entire mission in Iraq, which they consider a liberation that should be welcomed. But other Marines said their support for the intervention is undiminished, as direct contact with the enemy strengthens their conviction that the United States faces threats that require decisive action.

Commanders acknowledge a shift in attitude toward Iraqis among troops but insist it makes little difference in accomplishing their mission.

The Marines are a disciplined fighting force and under orders to treat Iraqis "with dignity," said Maj. Mike Wylie, the battalion executive officer.

The acts of friendship that Marines undertook when they arrived in Ramadi now in some cases heighten their resentment toward the city's residents.

After a series of ambushes one April day that killed a dozen Marines, Cpl. Jason Rodgers saw a familiar face among a group of slain attackers. The dead Iraqi, who was lying inches from a grenade, was a shopkeeper Rodgers had called on several times during foot patrols, he said.

"I felt like I'd been betrayed, personally," said Rodgers, 22, of Susanville, Calif. "I'd stood there, talking to him, shaking his hand, giving his kid candy. And he'd been studying our moves the whole time."


Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company



http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002039922_iraqattitude19.html

Ellie

thedrifter
09-20-04, 06:56 AM
Posted on Sun, Sep. 19, 2004





N.C. man who survived Marines' Fallujah assault killed in Iraq

Associated Press


RALEIGH, N.C. - A North Carolina Marine who took part in the U.S. military's siege of the militant stronghold of Fallujah last spring was killed by insurgents in Iraq, the Pentagon said Saturday.

Cpl. Christopher S. Ebert, 21, of Mooresboro, died Friday due to enemy action in Anbar Province, the Defense Department said. The Pentagon did not give other details of the engagement.

Ebert was assigned to Camp Pendleton, Calif., where he served with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force.

Ebert was supposed to leave Iraq in two weeks for his new assignment in California, his family said.

Ebert, whose former hometown on the border of Cleveland and Rutherford counties has a population of about 300, was interviewed by The Associated Press after his unit had been pinned down in block-to-block fighting in Fallujah on April 6.

U.S.-led forces attacked Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, after cheering Iraqis dragged the bodies of four American security guards hired by Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater Security through the streets on March 31.

Ebert's foot patrol pushed a few blocks into the city on April 6 before coming under fire from a house.

Trapped in a narrow alley, unable to see the source of fire, the Marines put up red smoke to summon help, and a tank and an armored Humvee moved in. The tank battered the house with a heavy machine gun and the patrol was extracted.

But soon afterward, guerrillas opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons on the 2nd Battalion Marines just outside the city, sending the Americans diving into the sand and sparking a battle that lasted into the night.

Guerrilla mortars exploded near the Americans, sending sand flying, and bullets whizzed over their heads.

Ebert said two Marines were wounded in the exchange.

Ebert, an infantryman, was serving in Iraq at the same time as his twin brother, Lance Cpl. Brian Ebert, who was in a transportation unit.

Both brothers enlisted in the Marines immediately after graduating from Chase High School. They were encouraged to join by their mother, Shirley Ebert.

"I thought this was something they really needed to do. I never one time thought they'd be going to war," she said in April.

After boot camp at Parris Island, S.C., the brothers were first assigned to Camp Lejeune, then given separate assignments. Before that, the twins has never been separated from each other except for Brian, a trombone player, attending band camp during high school.

Brian Ebert last week left Iraq for his new assignment in Hawaii. He received word of his brother's death on Friday and arrived at his father's Forest City home on Saturday evening.

"I am not good. We were close," Brian Ebert said.

As of Friday, 1,027 members of the U.S. military had died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003. Of those, 777 died as a result of hostile action and 250 died of non-hostile causes. Two more U.S. soldiers were killed by a car bomb in Baghdad on Saturday.

---


http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/9701322.htm


Ellie

thedrifter
09-20-04, 06:56 AM
Posted on Sun, Sep. 19, 2004





U.S. aims to retake Fallujah by 2005

With national election deadline looming, need to disarm rebels acute

DEXTER FILKINS

New York Times


BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. commanders in Iraq, faced with the dual problems of a growing insurgency and a January deadline for national elections, say they are preparing operations to open up rebel-held areas, especially Fallujah, the restive city west of Baghdad now under control of insurgents and Islamist groups.

A senior U.S. commander, speaking on a condition of anonymity, said the military intends to take back Fallujah and other rebel areas by year's end.

He did not set a date for an offensive but said much would depend on the availability of Iraqi military and police units, which would be sent to occupy the city once the Americans took it.

The U.S. commander suggested that operations in Fallujah could begin as early as November or December, the deadline the Americans have given themselves for restoring Iraqi government control across the country.

"We need to make a decision on when the cancer of Fallujah is going to be cut out," the U.S. commander said. "We would like to end December at local control across the country."

At a minimum, the U.S. commander said, local conditions would have to be secure for voting to take place in the country's 18 provincial capitals, for the election to be considered legitimate. U.S. forces have lost control over at least one provincial capital, Ramadi, in Al Anbar province, and have only a tenuous grip over a second, Baquba, the capital of Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.

Other large cities in the region, like Samarra, are largely in the hands of insurgents.

Senior officials at the United Nations are concerned that legitimate elections might not be possible unless the security conditions here change.

Violence against U.S. forces surged last month to its highest level since the war began last year, with an average of 87 attacks per day.

The Americans and the Iraqi interim government appear to be giving negotiations to disarm the rebels a final chance. Members of the Mujahedeen Shura, the eight-member council in control of Fallujah, said they would come to Baghdad today to meet with Iraqi officials to talk about disarming the rebels and opening the city to Iraqi government control.

"Although the Americans have lied many times, we are ready to start negotiations with the Iraqi government," said Hajji Qasim Muhammad Abdul Sattar, a member of the shura.

Ahmed Hardan, a Fallujah doctor who will take part in the negotiations, said at least some members of the council might be willing to strike a deal with U.S. officials.

The violence in Iraq is giving rise to concerns that voting held under the present conditions, with a possible large-scale boycott by the Sunni Arabs, would render the results of such an election suspect in the eyes of many Iraqis. If that happened, some Iraqis say, the stage could be set for even more violence.

"Bad elections will open wounds rather than heal them," said Ghassan al-Atiyyah, the director of the Iraqi Foundation for Development and Democracy, an independent governance group here. "If the Sunnis do not vote, then you could end up with a polarized Parliament that could lead to civil war."

An offensive on Fallujah and in other cities in the Sunni Triangle that have slipped out of the grip of U.S. forces undoubtedly would test the political will of the interim government and of its prime minister, Ayad Allawi. An initial assault by the U.S. Marines on Fallujah was halted in April, after Iraqi anger grew over the death of up to 600 Iraqis in the fighting.

At the time, Marine commanders said they were perhaps two days away from gaining control of the city's interior, but they were ordered to halt by the political leadership in Washington.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/9703149.htm


Ellie

thedrifter
09-20-04, 06:57 AM
Issue Date: September 20, 2004

Cheap labor
If you’re working 100 hours a week, can your wages really keep pace with civilian salaries?

By Vince Crawley
Times staff writer


Doug Dixon, a 23-year-old Marine sergeant, earns roughly $14 an hour as a computer system specialist at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and says he could easily earn $25 an hour or more — with fewer hours — in the civilian sector.
Army Staff Sgt. Edward Short, 32, earns about $11.50 an hour fighting insurgents and leading combat patrols in tense places such as Baghdad’s Sadr City.

Aviation Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class Sidney Jones, who has 10 years in uniform, earns about $11.40 an hour pulling 16-hour shifts on the deck of the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.

Capt. Phillip O’Briant has been in the Air Force since 2000 and earns not quite $25 per hour to fly an F-15 jet fighter out of Langley Air Force Base, Va.

Of course, people in uniform get paid by the month, not the hour. But a Marine Corps Times analysis of military and civilian pay estimates hourly wages based on monthly pay and the number of hours typically worked by service members. Hourly pay has been an age-old concern for military people when they try to compare their earnings to what they’d receive for a hard day’s work in the civilian world.

Surveys in recent years suggest most service members work 50 to 55 hours a week when not deployed. Overachievers and those deployed into combat zones can easily surpass 90 hours a week. A typical civilian workweek is supposed to be 40 hours before overtime kicks in — another foreign concept in the military.

By contrast, the average American earns $15.77 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which also says factory workers typically pull 4.6 hours of overtime per week.

An oddity of the monthly military pay scale means those who work the least earn the most per hour. An E-3 pulls down $15.07 an hour if he or she finds a way to work just 40 hours a week. If that same person deploys to combat patrols in Iraq, where the workweek might be twice as long, if not longer, he or she is suddenly earning just $7.02 per hour.

Still, even troops working the hardest earn more on an hourly basis than the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour. The one exception is military recruits who pull 18-hour days on the bottom rung of the military’s pay scale and earn a paltry $4.97 per hour.

But the troops themselves are the first to say they don’t do it just for the money. It seems they’d simply like to be acknowledged now and then for their hard work.

And make no mistake — it is hard. Short, the Army sergeant in Iraq, is a tank commander turned Humvee squad leader.

Before dawn, long past dusk

For him, a recent workday began at 5:30 a.m., when he started prepping his squad for morning patrols in Sadr City. That lasted until noon, when he passed out humanitarian meals to Iraqis until 3 p.m. Then it was on to one-hour patrols every three hours until 9 p.m.

During “down time,” he was getting chow, taking care of his troops and trying to get a little rest. His duty day ended at 9 p.m., but he also had to pull one-hour guard duty shifts overnight.

Aviation Boatswain’s Mate 2nd Class Shane Krueger, who works with a crash-and-salvage team on the flight deck of the Kitty Hawk, said the work hours are balanced out by the job security and benefits.

He served a stint in the civilian world and said he knows the value of military benefits, even if they don’t always show up in paychecks. After serving an active-duty tour, he spent 15 months as a civilian firefighter and found he wasn’t earning enough to support his family, which includes three children.

“It was the benefits that brought me back,” Krueger said. “To most of the Navy, they’re invisible.”

Jones, a flight-deck leading petty officer aboard the Kitty Hawk, said the military’s long hours are a double-edged sword.

“Being a human being, you do get burned out,” he said. “Still, I do get jazzed doing the job. We’re carrying out the orders of those appointed above us, doing incredible things. There’s nothing more exciting than that.”

Among nondeployed service members, recruiters work some of the longest hours.

Marine Sgt. Wesley Alexander, a 32-year-old recruiter, says he easily puts in 72-hour weeks as he makes his rounds in and around Jackson, Miss. His area includes 14 high schools and five colleges. He starts his day with physical training at 5:30 a.m., sometimes working out with potential recruits, then opens his office door by 8:30 a.m.

His long work hours mean he’s earning about $12.15 per hour – but of course, he doesn’t start getting overtime once he passes 40 hours a week.

Still, Alexander is able to put away some money each month. “You just need to know how to budget,” he said.

And he says his job has rewards that don’t show up in his monthly leave-and-earnings statement.

“As a recruiter, you can help young men and women change their lives,” he said.

Staff Sgt. Robert Ciman, 23, an Army recruiter in Green Island, N.Y., also says he works at least 70 hours per week, putting his hourly pay at about $13.80 per hour, based on his Regular Military Compensation plus his recruiter special-duty pay. But he doesn’t dwell on it.

“I don’t even really notice the hours — the day just kind of disappears on you,” said Ciman, 23, whose first four years in the Army were spent at Fort Drum, N.Y., with the 10th Mountain Division. “What I like most is talking with the kids in the area, dealing with them and trying to help them.”

He was selected for the three-year recruiting stint and came home early from Afghanistan to fill the post. With a wife and 5-month-old daughter at home, the extra pay is welcome, but, Ciman said, he’s always been happy with his Army pay.

“I think it equals out pretty good [with the private sector],” he said. “I came in right out of high school, and I’m pretty comfortable.”

Another group of hard-working nondeployed service members is drill instructors.

“When you first start out with a new division, you can put in up to 80 hours a week,” said Dental Technician 1st Class Dana Wallace, now serving as a recruit division commander at Naval Training Center Great Lakes, Ill. “It gets better as the training progresses.”

At Wallace’s pace, her hourly pay would be $13.55, which includes her Regular Military Compensation plus drill-instructor special-duty pay. But like many in uniform, Wallace said her reward isn’t always financial.

“When parents come up to you at graduation and thank you for what you’ve done for their son or daughter, that’s real special,” she said. “I can’t put a price tag on that.”

Feast or famine

Along with long hours and no overtime, another characteristic of military work life is its pace, which can vary wildly from one week to the next, and sometimes even one day to the next.

“It’s kind of feast or famine,” said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Kevin Hunt, a C-17 loadmaster based at Charleston Air Force Base, S.C.

Hunt said a slow week is a regular 40-hour week, but he could work as many as 80 hours or more in a given week when he’s flying.

For a 40-hour week, he’d make $26.47 per hour, which includes his Regular Military Compensation (basic pay, BAH and BAS) as well as flight pay. For an 80-hour week, he’d make half that, or about $13.24 per hour.

O’Briant, the F-15 pilot at Langley, flies three or four times a week. And if he flies Monday mornings, he has to go in Sunday for a couple of hours.

“I’ve got a pretty good job flying F-15s,” said O’Briant, who usually reports for duty at 6:30 a.m. “I can’t complain.”

Neither does Marine Staff Sgt. Marc Riddle, 31, an aviation technician who keeps F/A-18 Hornets airworthy at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C., where long days and late nights are the norm.

“That’s just the way it is,” he said of his duty days, which typically stretch well beyond 50 hours per week, bringing his hourly pay to about $17.39 per hour. “Ultimately, the mission and fixing the aircraft has a higher priority.”

Most maintenance takes place after dark. When Riddle pulls the night shift, he arrives at the hangar before 5 p.m. to meet with his crew of 10 Marines. Officially, the shift ends at 3 a.m., but sometimes the team will stay until the day shift arrives at 7 a.m.

“When it comes down to it, I wouldn’t change anything,” he said. “I enjoy deploying. I enjoy working on the aircraft. I enjoy spending time with the Marines.”

Dixon, the Marine sergeant who works as a computer systems specialist, said 60-hour workweeks are not uncommon. His average is 55 hours, he said.

“It’s not good,” he said of the hours. “Out in the real world, I could be making 70, 80 grand easy. I could be making $20, $25 an hour easy. I’d probably be working a straight 40-hour week out there.”

He’s due for re-enlistment and, with a young family to support, is waiting to see what kind of bonus he’s offered.

Most people in his high-tech military-occupational specialty don’t stay in uniform, he said.

“I saw someone turn down a $75,000-a-year job” in favor of one that paid $92,000, he said. “It was pretty impressive. That was the guy I replaced when I got here. Now, I’m the one putting in the hours.”

Staff writers Laura Bailey, C. Mark Brinkley, Gina Cavallaro, Laura Colarusso, Matthew Cox, Mark Faram and Christian Lowe contributed to this report.



http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-MARINEPAPER-346113.php


Ellie

thedrifter
09-20-04, 11:37 AM
Vets Find Stress Hard To Shake
Biloxi Sun Herald
September 20, 2004

The death and violence of Iraq still haunts some of the soldiers who served there.

"I don't sleep. That's been the main thing," said Sgt. Russell Davis, a member of the Purvis detachment of the 890th Engineer Battalion, which returned from the deadly Sunni triangle in March.

Davis has also felt abnormally irritable, a normal reaction to the mental and physical stress he endured in Iraq. His duty included convoys, which were attacked three or four times by improvised explosive devices.

"I stayed on convoys," said Davis, whose civilian job is fleet maintenance for the city of Hattiesburg. "We worked a lot of long hours over there and then you had to pull guard duty."

Treatment is available for these normal reactions to combat, said Tanya Griego, a counselor at the Vet Center in Biloxi, who spoke to the Purvis unit last Saturday.

More than 1,000 U.S. troops have died in the war on Iraq. Military medical officers estimate that one in six veterans will suffer symptoms of combat stress. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, more than 225,000 Guard members have been activated for full-time duty.

Nearly 40 percent of the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are National Guardsmen.

The human cost of the $150 billion war on Iraq could become astronomical. Already, a small group of Iraq veterans have come for confidential counseling at the Vet Center, which treats about 30 Vietnam-era veterans.

"They are having a lot of family problems," she said.

Combat stress reactions can surface after many years, said Griego, a former Air Force officer with a master's degree in social work. Compounding the stress reaction is an unwillingness to seek treatment, since many of the troops fear the stigma of mental illness.

"As time goes on, if you have any of these symptoms, it gets worse," said Griego.

A leader of the Purvis unit said that 60 to 65 percent of the National Guardsmen show signs of combat stress.

"A lot of them have made statements that they just don't feel like they fit in anymore," said Staff Sgt. John M. Hankins, who has been with the unit for 25 years.

"The same amount have trouble being in crowded places, such as restaurants."

Hankins said many of them have bouts of anger and a few report nightmares. Several of their wives have called asking for help.

Hankins estimates that 90 percent saw violence that affected them. Most of them were rocked by frequent mortar attacks on their camps or went on convoys that were hit by improvised explosive devices, the roadside booby traps now used by insurgents.

"That got to a lot of them," said Hankins, who had a neck surgery just before deployment and did not go to Iraq.

A 25-year veteran of the unit, Hankins is keenly aware of personality changes among his friends in the unit, who served in Iraq.

"The ones I didn't grow up with, I raised," he said. "All of them changed."

Their families are worried and the soldiers are struggling to return to normal.

"For some of them it will take a long, hard time to get back to the world they left," said Hankins. "Mentally, they will never get back to that world."

Ellie

thedrifter
09-20-04, 12:38 PM
The Second War
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sept. 19, 2004
CBS News

The war in Iraq has become two wars. First, the invasion - now a second war against the resistance. Just last week, the New York Times reported that President Bush's top intelligence advisors told him in July that Iraq's near term future is shaky and could descent into civil war.

As Correspondent Scott Pelley reports, you'll hear the same thing from Iraq's national security advisor, who says American troops are the only thing holding Iraq together.

What does the second war mean for U.S. troops? Now, they're finding that combat is close, sometimes hand to hand.

U.S. troops - 138 Americans - died to topple Saddam. Since then, nearly 900 have died in a war with goals that are not as clear.

Pelley visited a battlefield where soldiers were killed in some of the most violent combat of recent weeks. It's a place known as the Valley of Peace, a 1,000 year old cemetery of five square miles outside the holy city of Najaf. Muslims come here to be buried next to the founder of Shia Islam.

For believers, this is heaven's gate. But for U.S. Marines, it was a battle from hell.

"The majority of the fighting took place about 100 meters down the road, and as you can see, they started coming out of the crypts. It's like a video game. He pops up, fires a couple of shots, pops back down. You see him for a second, maybe two," says Marine 1st Lt. Lamar Breshears, of the 1st battalion, 4th Marine regiment.

He fought in the invasion that freed the oppressed Shia Muslims who are centered in Najaf. He never expected to return on a second tour to fight the people he liberated.

"They had small arms, AK47s, light machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades," says Breshears. "The two faces I saw, you know, mid-20s, young males fighting for what they believe in."

The battle in the cemetery in August was one of the bloodiest examples of what the war is about today. American GIs provide firepower and protection for a new Iraqi government with many enemies. What would happen if American troops left tomorrow?

"This is a recipe for civil war. There's no doubt about it," says Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie, the interim government's national security advisor and a chief negotiator with the rebels in Najaf. "A messy, really dirty civil war, because it will be on religious grounds, on sectarian grounds, on ethnic ground, on all sorts of grounds."

Can America achieve success in Iraq, or is the idea of success out of American hands at this point?

"I have no shadow of doubt in my mind that Iraq, in the next 5 to 10 years, is going to turn around," says al-Rubaie. "And it's going to be the beacon of democracy. This is going to be an example of prosperity, stability and really an example for the whole region... I'm talking about the whole experiment of liberating Iraq."

In that experiment, there are explosive elements - like the Mahdi Army, a few thousand strong. No one's sure how many, led by a young, junior cleric named Muqtada al-Sadr. His goal is to make Iraq an Islamic state, not unlike Iran.

Last month, al-Sadr's followers essentially hijacked Najaf. Al-Sadr seized the Imam Ali Shrine, among the holiest sites on earth to Iraq's Shia majority. Al-Sadr urged his followers to fight the Americans to the death - and a lot of them did just that.

The Marines came under fire from hundreds of militiamen hidden in the cemetery. Breshears warned his men the combat would be different now.

"I told them this is what you've been preparing for your entire Marine Corps career," says Breshears. "The war was easy. If you look at the terrain out there you know what we're getting into, let's go get 'em."

Video from an Arab television channel shows the intensity of the fight. Americans didn't see much of this, because there were no TV cameras with the Marines down below in the mausoleum maze. But there was a still photographer, Lucian Read, who moved through the cemetery with the Marines, capturing the battle up close - sometimes at the side of Breshears.

"When you have that many people, that many rifles, that many machine guns, you have grenades exploding, rocket-propelled grenades exploding, rockets being fired, it's deafening, it's a dull roar," says Breshears.

Staff Sgt. Ian Bonnell is in Breshears' platoon. "I didn't want to go in there. The first day that we showed up, we're on a wall. And we're taking all the fire in there. And I just kept thinking to myself, 'We're gonna have to go in there,'" he says. "It played out pretty much how I expected it... Close-in fighting, getting up close and personal with people."

In some cases, says Breshears, that means 5 feet, and "in some cases 20 feet, close enough where you could throw hand grenades at each other. You could smell them. You could smell their living spaces. That sort of thing. So it was very close contact."
The fight in Najaf became one of the fiercest urban battles that U.S. forces have seen in the entire campaign.

As the companies of Marines were moving through the cemetery, there were other Marines who were addressing the buildings in the old city. One Marine commander said that he had 150 Marines concentrated in a very small area entering the buildings.

This was the kind of the close order combat that most everyone was concerned would happen in Baghdad, but never really materialized until in Najaf. One Marine officer said his men were fighting hand to hand, and when they couldn't reach their side arms, they used knives for fighting instead.

The Iraqi's best weapons were mortars which rained down, wounding Marines in the cemetery. Staff Sgt. Robert Willis lost a lieutenant, a radio operator, and a medic in the same mortar blast. When his lieutenant was wounded, Willis called the Marines to a huddle, took over his platoon and pressed the attack as another mortar came down.

"It landed at our feet and had hit my corpsman, my second corpsman, and hit my radio operator and hit one of my squad leaders, about 25 meters behind it," says Willis.

"Down the line, you could hear everyone yelling 'incoming,' and at one point, I remember looking over and the chaplain that was with us," says Bonnell. "He was walking up and down the lines and it wasn't even fazing him. A round would go off and blow up and he'd turn around and look and start walking that way to make sure everyone was OK."

That chaplain, Father Paul Shaunessy, blessed the Marines as they fought. Photographer Lucian Read's pictures tell the battle's small stories. Soldiers catching a moment's rest. Calling for help after finding the body of a fallen American. Carrying the wounded to safety.

And in another picture, Sgt. Yadir Reynoso is helping to treat a wounded Marine as the medics move in. Hours later, Reynoso was killed by enemy fire. He was one of nine Americans to die in the three-week battle - about 100 were wounded.

As for the enemy, no one knows how many Mahdi Army soldiers were killed - but estimates are in the hundreds. In the ceasefire, al-Sadr agreed to give up the Holy Mosque, but he and his fighters were allowed to walk away with their weapons to fight another day.

"Removing Saddam liberated the Shia. And now, the U.S. is fighting the Shia. How did we lose them?" asks Pelley.

"America is not fighting the Shia now. And the Shia are not fighting America now," says al-Rubaie. "It's a small group of people who has perceived the liberation wrongly for their own political gain and for their own personal ambition."

Attacks continue through much of Iraq, launched by those al-Rubaie says have "perceived the liberation wrongly."

Last week, there were close to 20 terrorist bombings. In downtown Baghdad, one blast killed nearly 50 people outside a police station. To the west, the Marines won't even enter the city of Fallujah in Al-Anbar province. It's a town of a quarter of a million people in the hands of the rebels. The Americans tried to install a mayor in Fallujah, but the office isn't in Fallujah and the mayors are not in the office.

"I have to admit that this province is a troubled province," says al-Rubaie. "And potentially, it can be a troubling one."

But peace, prosperity and democracy in Iraq can't be achieved without bringing Al-Anbar province along.

"Absolutely. Al-Anbar is an integral part of Iraq," says al-Rubaie. "And if we start the economy there, if we give them some jobs, if we get the tribal sheiks together, and try to sort out their differences, I think we will be able to abort a potential problem there."

In Al-Anbar, the Americans are trying to buy what they can't take by force. Just outside Fallujah, they were pulling out fresh bricks of $100,000 dollars each, handing them over to this man to build barracks for the Iraqi army.

The security problem, however, is part of every Iraqi's life. On the outskirts of Baghdad, there is an assembly line running long into the hot afternoon. These men are paid $5 a day, and they're glad to get it. Orders are rolling in from the Americans and the Iraqi interim government.

They just can't build enough of these concrete barriers. There are walls in Iraq that are now 16 feet high and miles long - sealing off American bases and Iraqi government offices. The ramparts run 16 feet high and miles long in some places, separating America's hope for Iraq from its current reality.

Back in Najaf, some of the Marines are frustrated after the battle. Some feel they paid too great a price to let al-Sadr go. Some complain they've become a tool of Iraqi politics. Others say Najaf is uneasy, but at least it's no longer under siege. And as Willis points out, plenty of Iraqis were glad to see al-Sadr and his fighters go.

"I can say the best thing right now is how the people reacted when we left, letting us know 'Hey, thanks,'" says Willis.

After 16 months, the battle is different now. Instead of weapons of mass destruction, they're finding combat close and personal. Many Americans, fighting in places like the graveyard, have buried their early hopes of what a liberated Iraq would be.


Ellie

thedrifter
09-20-04, 02:48 PM
Iraqi PM Says Violence Won't Stop Vote

By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iraqi prime minister insisted Sunday that the raging insurgency _ which has claimed 300 lives in the last week alone and resulted in a wave of kidnappings _ will not delay January elections, promising the vote will strike a "major blow" against the violent opposition.

Meanwhile, a grisly videotape posted on a Web site showed the beheading of three hostages believed to be Iraqi Kurds accused by militants of cooperating with U.S. forces. A separate group also claimed to have captured 18 Iraqi soldiers and threatened to kill them unless a detained aide of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was freed, according to the Arab news station Al-Jazeera.

In another sign of continuing instability 17 months into the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, a suicide car bomb killed three people in Samarra _ a northern city that U.S. and Iraqi commanders have portrayed as a success story in their attempts to put down the insurgency.

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Over the past week, about 300 people have been killed in escalating violence, including bombings, street fighting and U.S. airstrikes. Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned there could not be "credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now."

But Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who is heading to the United Nations for this week's General Assembly session in New York, said his interim government was determined "to stick to the timetable of the elections," which are due by Jan. 31.

"January next, I think, is going to be a major blow to terrorists and insurgents," said Allawi, who spoke with reporters after a meeting with British leader Tony Blair in London. "We are adamant that democracy is going to prevail, is going to win in Iraq."

Allawi, a Shiite Muslim, has been insistent about holding elections on time because of pressure from Iraq's Shiite community and its most powerful cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who fought for early elections. Reneging on the vote would risk angering the generally cooperative Shiite religious establishment.

Shiites, who are in the majority in Iraq, are eager to translate their numbers into political power.

But several cities in the Sunni Muslim heartland north and west of Baghdad are out of U.S. and Iraqi government control, with insurgents holding sway, particularly in the city of Fallujah. That raises questions on whether balloting can be held there _ and the legitimacy of elections held without adequate Sunni participation.

Republican and Democratic senators urged the Bush administration on Sunday to face the reality of the situation in Iraq and change its policies. A major problem, said leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on CBS' "Face the Nation," was incompetence by the administration in reconstructing the country's shattered infrastructure.

"The fact is a crisp, sharp analysis of our policies is required. We didn't do that in Vietnam, and we saw 11 years of casualties mount to the point where we finally lost," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran who is co-chairman of President Bush's re-election committee in Nebraska.

The decapitated bodies of the three slain Kurdish hostages were found on a road near the northern city of Mosul, said Sarkawt Hassan, security chief in the Kurdish town of Sulaimaniyah. He said the three were members of the peshmerga militia of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

The videotape, posted Sunday on a site known for its Islamic militant content, shows three young men, two of whom hold up identity cards. Seconds later, each has his throat slit and his head placed on the back of his body.

The Ansar al-Sunna Army _ a Sunni militant group that said it killed 12 Nepalese hostages in August and carried out Feb. 1 suicide attacks against Kurdish political parties that killed 109 people _ claimed responsibility for the beheadings in a statement with the video.

It said the three were KDP members snatched as they were transporting military vehicles to a base in Taji, 15 miles north of Baghdad.

The group said it was targeting Iraqi Kurdish parties because they have "sworn allegiance to the crusaders and fought and are still fighting Islam and its people."

The tape and the statement could not be independently verified.

On Wednesday, security forces said they had discovered three beheaded bodies _ all male and with tattoos _ without documents near Dijiel, about 25 miles north of Baghdad, but it was not clear if they were connected to the victims in the video.

Al-Jazeera aired a separate video claiming 18 captured Iraqi soldiers would be killed unless detained al-Sadr aide Hazem al-A'araji was freed in 48 hours. The men in military dress were shown seated at gunpoint in the video from a group calling itself the Brigades of Mohammed bin Abdullah.

Abu Dhar al-Kanani, spokesman for al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in Baghdad, told Al-Jazeera that the militia had nothing to do with the soldiers' abduction.

The videos surfaced the day before the Tawhid and Jihad group, led by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has threatened to behead Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong and Briton Kenneth Bigley, who were seized from their Baghdad house last week.

The group, which has claimed responsibility for a series of bombings and hostage takings, demands the release of Iraqi women from the American controlled Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr prisons.

Abu Ghraib is the prison where U.S. soldiers were photographed sexually humiliating male prisoners, but the U.S. military says no women are held at either facility, though it says it is holding two female "security prisoners" elsewhere.

More than 135 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq, some for lucrative ransoms, and many have been executed. At least five other Westerners are being held hostage here, including an Iraqi-American man, two female Italian aid workers and two French reporters.

Lebanon's Foreign Ministry said Sunday that three Lebanese men and their Iraqi driver were abducted by gunmen on the Baghdad-Fallujah highway Friday night. The four worked for a travel agency that has a branch in Baghdad, a Foreign Ministry official said

Sunday's attack in Samarra, 65 miles north of Baghdad, came less than a week after American forces re-entered the city, which had been under insurgents' control and a virtual "no-go" area for U.S. troops since May 30.

The Americans returned under a peace deal brokered by tribal leaders under which U.S. forces agreed to provide millions of dollars in reconstruction funds in exchange for an end to attacks on American and Iraqi troops.

The blast killed an Iraqi soldier, a civilian and the suicide bomber and wounded four American and three Iraqi soldiers, said Maj. Neal O'Brien of the Army's 1st Infantry Division.

Allawi has pointed to the Samarra deal as an example of success in a fight he insists U.S and Iraqi forces are winning against the insurgents.

"We are squeezing out the insurgency," he said in an interview with ABC's "This Week," taped on Friday and aired Sunday. "We have secured Samarra now, which was an important tie for insurgencies and the so-called resistance."

Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes and artillery pounded the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah late Saturday and early Sunday, killing four people and wounding six, hospital officials said. The military said it hit a checkpoint manned by militants linked to al-Zarqawi, the military said.

Elswhere, four insurgents were killed when a bomb they were attempting to plant at the side of a road near the eastern Iraqi city of Suwayrah exploded shortly before midnight Saturday, a military spokesman said.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/09/20/ap/headlines/d8578gag0.txt

Ellie

thedrifter
09-20-04, 03:29 PM
Vietnam is not Iraq

By: BILL SANZ - Commentary

During our latest military conflicts, from Beirut to Somalia to Bosnia to Afghanistan and back to Iraq, some comparisons to Vietnam have been made. I was too young to fight in the Vietnam conflict that took place over 30 years ago, killing more than 58,000 Americans over the course of three decades, under five different presidents. But, I do know a few things about that war.

I read articles about the war in Vietnam and remember watching news broadcasts that brought the war into our living rooms. I remember my worried older brother enlisted in the Coast Guard to avoid the draft. I understood the explanations of the domino theory in Southeast Asia and of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. I watched as this divisive conflict eventually led to a united Vietnam while polarizing our country.

I have personally talked to soldiers who fought in both Vietnam and Iraq. Most veterans I have talked with about Vietnam relayed their frustration with their mission. My nephew, an Army corporal, came back recently from Iraq with the sense that he gave hope to a nation. The Marines from Camp Pendleton I spoke with relayed a similar message. The contrast of experiences is quite different from a soldier's perspective.

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Obvious differences between our present conflict in Iraq and Vietnam are many. Iraq is not in an organized civil war, as Vietnam was. The deposed dictator, Saddam Hussein, was hated by most of his countrymen. Iraq has no jungles, no communists, no Soviet funding. Terrorists now in Iraq savor power once brokered, but are few compared to the hundreds of thousands of Viet Cong. The chance of starting World War III vs. another superpower is not a threat in Iraq.

Lately, I have grown tired of the parallels being drawn between Iraq and Vietnam. Poor students of history or political partisans persist in using the specter of Vietnam. Instead, politicians should open a serious dialogue regarding our involvement in Iraq. I surely hope there aren't many more parallels drawn between Vietnam and Iraq in these next few weeks.

There are valid reasons for supporting our involvement in Iraq if we approach it without partisan bias. There is oil in Iraq that we should underscore as one of the strategic reasons. There is our regional partner, Israel, which was constantly threatened by a Saddam-led Iraq. There are the Iraqi people themselves, who deserve a right to a decent life free of tyranny.

The world is safer without Saddam, who was a constant threat to our security, to the security of Israel, and to that of many others.

The big picture shows the contrast of these two conflicts. Vietnam was a cancer, slowly eating away our youth, decaying our social fabric. Iraq is a plucked seed with the prospect of becoming a radiant flower. If we don't abandon it, I believe that Iraq will prosper and eventually help stabilize the region. Should the new Iraq succeed, it will become an ally in support of the ideals of liberty and social justice that we as Americans struggle to uphold.

Bill Sanz lives in Temecula.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/09/20/opinion/9_19_0420_49_08.txt


Ellie

thedrifter
09-20-04, 03:34 PM
Video shows American hostage beheaded
Group linked to al-Zarqawi threatens to kill 2 other captives

Monday, September 20, 2004 Posted: 4:27 PM EDT (2027 GMT)




BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An Islamic Web site showed video of an American hostage in Iraq being beheaded by members of insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group.

The video showed American Eugene Armstrong sitting in front of five masked insurgents -- four of them armed with assault rifles and one in the middle reading from a paper statement.

"We will apply God's law on them," a masked man said just before the killing.

Armstrong wore an orange jumpsuit and was blindfolded, with his arms behind him. He occasionally fidgeted while the statement was being read.

A U.S. official said a body believed to be that of an American has been recovered.

The group Jihad and Unification gave a new 24-hour deadline to meet its demand that Muslim women be released from Iraqi prisons or the other hostages will be killed. The group previously released a video of three hostages -- two Americans and a Briton.

The United States said no women are in the two jails, Umm Qasr and Abu Ghraib, named by the militants. But it does hold two female "high-value detainees" -- former members of Saddam Hussein's regime -- at undisclosed locations. (Full story)

The man who read the statement on the video said women are being held in Iraq prisoners, despite American denials.

"Since you didn't release our sisters, here's the first infidel," the man said.

He then pulled out a knife. Armstrong was shoved to the ground and his head severed.

The video was posted on a Web site that has been used by insurgents in the past.

On Saturday, the Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera broadcast video of the hostages with their abductors giving the initial 48-hour deadline for their demands to be met.

The wife of Jack Hensley, the other American, begged for all three men's safety after the video was broadcast Saturday.

"Please let them go," Patty Hensley said from her home near Atlanta, Georgia. "They need to come home." (Full story)

Kenneth John Bigley of Great Britain was also being held.

Jihad and Unification, which claims loyalty to al-Zarqawi, has taken responsibility for beheading U.S. businessman Nicholas Berg, South Korean translator Kim Sun-il and a Bulgarian hostage in Iraq.

Increased danger
The pace of hostage-taking in Iraq has increased in recent weeks.

On Sunday, an influential Sunni Muslim cleric was captured and later killed.

Sheik Hazim al-Zaidi, the Sunni imam of Baghdad's al-Sajjad mosque, was kidnapped while leaving the temple in the capital's Sadr City neighborhood, a heavily Shiite Muslim district, al-Zaidi spokesman Ammar al-Siger said.

His body was later delivered back to the mosque.

A second cleric, Sheik Mohammed Jado'ou, was gunned down Monday in southwest Baghdad's Baya'a district, al-Siger said.

Jado'ou was leaving prayers at his al-Kwather mosque when gunmen in a vehicle drove next to him and opened fire, the spokesman said.

The two clerics are members of the influential Sunni Committee of Muslim Scholars, a group that weighs in on key issues, provides religious interpretations and has helped with negotiating the release of hostages.

Al-Jazeera also broadcast video Saturday showing kidnappers who threatened to kill 10 employees of a Turkish company if their employer did not withdraw from Iraq within three days.

The company distanced itself from the United States on Monday, saying it has no business dealings with American companies or on U.S. military bases.

Vinsan General Manager Mehmet Akpinar said that the firm has been doing business in Iraq for 10 months and has sought out partnerships with Iraqis.

Akpinar and company spokeswoman Nalan Bayrak said initial reports that Vinsan was a joint U.S.-Turkish venture were untrue and that the company is wholly Turkish owned.

In addition, a previously unknown militant group claimed to have captured 15 members of the Iraqi national guard Sunday and threatened to kill them unless a jailed aide of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is released, according to a video broadcast by Al-Jazeera.

But a second video shown Monday on Al-Jazeera claimed to show the release of the men, all dressed in white robes and carrying copies of the Koran. Iraqi officials said they were unaware of any missing guardsmen, and a spokesman for al-Sadr moved quickly to distance the cleric from the reported kidnappings.

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http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/09/20/iraq.main/index.html


Ellie

thedrifter
09-20-04, 06:54 PM
Armed and ready for Iraq
Submitted by: MCB Camp Pendleton
Story Identification #: 2004920154325
Story by Sgt. Kenneth G. Lewis



MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (Sept. 16, 2004) -- The Marine Corps ethos is that "every Marine is a rifleman." But not every Marine will always have a rifle.

So training to fight off the enemy with the standard-issue M-9 mm pistol has become a priority with so many Marines squaring off with insurgents in Iraq. It's so important the Marine Corps enlisted a man many consider the nation's foremost authority on handgun training to help prepare deploying Marines.

Marines from the I Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group are among the latest to undergo the Defensive Handgun and Defensive Urban Rifle courses sponsored by Defense Training International, Inc. John S. Farnam, a former Marine and president of DFI, conducts the training. He has personally trained thousands of federal, state and local law enforcement personnel in firearms tactics.

Unlike the normal pistol and rifle ranges the Marines visit every fiscal year, these ranges are set up specifically to equip Marines with skills needed in Iraq. Students in the course never hear commands such as "load" or "make ready" in Farnam's courses, which also include steel-rotator targets and the opportunity to exit a vehicle, as if on patrol, with a fully loaded weapon before moving forward on foot, using different points of cover and concealment.

"We run our ranges hot. Marines will have loaded weapons overseas, they should train the same way," Farnam says. "Marines are my most enthusiastic students. They come out with no complaints or whining, just anxious to train"

Marines welcomed the chance to fire live rounds in a dynamic format.

"On the basic range, there is no sense of urgency like there is in a real firefight," says Staff Sgt. Nelson Reichert, MHG's supply chief, and an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran. "This is one of the best courses I have ever attended. The course allows more realistic scenarios vice the standard target that you just aim and shoot at.

"More Marines should be (afforded) the opportunity to attend this course," Reichert added. "Over there we had closer contact with the people. The skills they teach us here will help those that are deploying handle the situation better."

Marines were impressed not only with the training but the lecture and critiques each Marine received after each portion of firing.

"John and his crew are outstanding instructors. They do a great job of critiquing you after each exercise and do a good job of bringing you up to speed," said Cpl. Michael E. Stewart from Braceville, Ohio, and member of MHG's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical team.

Farnam says he's happy to please - especially when Marines are the customers.

"This is the highlight of my year," he said. "Law enforcement agencies and other professions we train may never have to utilize the tactics we teach. However, each individual student we have taught over the past few days will almost certainly be involved in a gunfight. We just want to help bring them home safe."

The course covers pistol firing because not all Marines - including most officers and staff noncommissioned officers - aren't issued a rifle. Most, however, can check out a rifle from a field armory before venturing into potentially hostile areas.


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Ellie