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thedrifter
10-18-04, 07:04 AM
4th LAAD Battalion hosts ranges in Iraqi Desert
Submitted by: 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing
Story Identification #: 2004101216135
Story by Cpl. Joel A. Chaverri



AL ASAD, Iraq (Oct. 4, 2004) -- The Marine Corps has always placed a high importance on the training of their troops.

Especially while in a war-zone, a high standard of excellence is required of the Marines in every aspect of operations.

In order to meet these requirements, it’s imperative that there are proper facilities to conduct the various types of training necessary to get the job done.

With numerous units based on Al Asad, the need arose for adequate training areas. The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing has taken responsibility for controlling and maintaining the weapons ranges for all the units aboard Al Asad.

Run by the Marines of 4th Low-Altitude Air Defense Battalion, Security Battalion, Marine Wing Support Group 37, 3rd MAW, Range Operations and Training has a large area of operations with combat courses that encompass a wide variety of training.

Covering everything from small arms to full-scale bombs, range control Marines ensure that the training is conducted safely and efficiently.

“We do a lot of training out here,” said 45-year-old Yorba Linda, Calif., native Master Gunnery Sgt. Ronnie M. Mejia, operations chief, Range Operations and Training. “Since taking over September 1, we’ve trained almost 5,000 Marines.”

According to Mejia, running the weapons ranges requires a lot more than scheduling times and organizing units.

“We give safety briefs for the ranges we run, place targets, and clean up the ranges,” he said. “We give classes about all factors of weapons and combat.”

Nicknamed “Angles of Death,” the range control Marines have full confidence in their abilities to do their job.

“We’re good at what we do,” said 26-year-old Chicago native Sgt. Jesus E. Villegas, LAAD gunner, Range Operations and Training. “We’re always on time and always motivated.”

Having available over a dozen mission-specific ranges for weapons such as pistols, rifles, heavy machine guns, various rocket launchers, grenades and artillery gives the range control Marines enough work to keep them busy.

“We also try to give (units) as much time as necessary so they can prepare for their missions,” said Mejia. “They have priority.”

Along with organizing the ranges for the units on base, Range Operations and Training also host ranges or the Iraqi Police force and border patrol.

“We’re training the Iraqi boarder patrol how to do fire their weapons, do squad rushes, and engage targets on the move,” said 23-year-old Eric, Penn., native Sgt. Heath A. Fernald, instructor, 2nd Amphibious Assault Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, during a recent training session held at the fire and maneuver range here.

Also located on base is a range used specifically for grenade training. The Marines run through a course with various barriers and throw grenades while their fellow Marines give cover fire with live ammunition.

With all of these tasks, it’s often that the range control personnel don’t get a chance to participate in the training themselves.

“We’re always conducting training for other units,” said 23-year-old Burlington, Wash., native, Sgt. Richard L. Swihart III, LAAD gunner, Range Operations and Training. “As a result, we hardly ever get a chance to do any training.”

“Our mission is support the other units on base,” added Swihart. “Our personal training comes second.”

However that doesn’t mean that they don’t train at all. Occasionally the range control Marines occasionally get the opportunity to mix business with pleasure by participating in the range shoots they conduct.

“Every once in a while we’ll go out and shoot weapons with another unit,” said Villegas. “Firing a machine gun and throwing grenades is pretty motivating.”

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/20041012163327/$file/041002-M-2789C-043-RangeLR.jpg

Marines from Regimental Combat Team 7, 1st Marine Division, conduct live-fire and grenade training at one of the multiple weapons ranges at Al Asad, Iraq, Oct. 02. The ranges aboard the air base are controlled and maintained by the Marines of 4th Low-Altitude Air Defense Battalion, Marine Wing Support Group 37, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing. Photo by: Cpl. Joel A. Chaverri

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/51E5EF8465B1E96C85256F2B006E024B?opendocument


Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 07:05 AM
Building bridges with Iraqi kids

By Ed Grisamore

Telegraph Columnist


The cards and letters arrive almost daily from American schoolchildren. They draw pictures and scribble words.

Richard Suttles and other Marines in Iraq often smile when they read them. Sometimes, they may even reach to wipe a tear or two.

"They write on construction paper with cute images," said Suttles.

Their thoughts, however, aren't always cute. Some are disturbing.

"They tell us to kill all the bad guys," he said.

In this war on terror, that's a noble goal. But Suttles is bothered by the perception, no matter how innocent, that everyone is a "bad guy" in Iraq.

"Some of these children have the wrong idea of what is going on over here," he said.

Suttles celebrated his 34th birthday Saturday, about 6,800 miles from his old Macon stomping ground. He graduated from Stratford Academy in 1988. His mother, Cindy Mitchell, still lives in Macon.

Suttles has been in Iraq for about 10 weeks. He is a Marine reservist working in civil affairs. He is a staff sergeant and team leader for a unit of 20. He is stationed near Mahmudiyah, about 15 miles south of Baghdad.

He works directly with Iraqi citizens in an effort to help rebuild the war-ravaged country's infrastructure. He is training civilians to work in law enforcement.

He also sees an Iraq decidedly different from the images beamed into America's living rooms on the evening news.

No, he doesn't sugarcoat the danger. The threats are an everyday reality.

But there are other colors on this canvas.

"Most Americans see the car bombings and think this place is going to hell," Suttles said in an interview by satellite phone. "But they don't see the things I see. The vast majority of the Iraqi people are happy we are here. They're not angry with us. They wave to us and shake our hands."

That's why he wants America's schoolkids to understand that Iraqi schoolchildren are not much different than they are.

He wants to change the tone of their letters and introduce them to the Iraqi schools.

"Iraqi kids love to play, too," he said. "They like to play soccer, watch TV and color with crayons. They don't want to hurt anybody."

He has a plan - he calls it a vision - to cultivate friendships.

So, if you're a teacher or a parent, listen up.

Suttles' idea is to orchestrate a letter-writing campaign between Iraqi school children and the elementary schools in Macon and Middle Georgia.

He is calling it "Operation: Classmates."

Depending on the number of area schools that choose to participate, he can expand the project into any number of nearby Iraqi schools. He said the Iraqi children are anxious to have pen pals.

Suttles wants to encourage local students to make cards and introduce themselves through notes and photographs. The letters can be sent to

Operation: Classmates

c/o Cindy Mitchell

P.O. Box 4993

Macon, Ga. 31208-4993

Mitchell will coordinate the project from here and send the letters to her son. She hopes establishing a dialogue between the children of the two countries will help promote "understanding and acceptance between our cultures."

Suttles believes it's a matter of building bridges instead of putting up walls.

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/local/9940070.htm


Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 07:06 AM
October 18, 2004

Not ready for air time
Tester says technological glitches found in reserve radios; some fixed

By Jason Sherman
Times staff writer


The Pentagon’s top equipment tester says new combat survival radios being issued to military pilots and aircrews — including Army aviators heading to Iraq — need several fixes before they’re ready for real-world operations.
The Combat Survivor Evader Locator radio failed in nearly one in five rescue attempts during operational tests that ended earlier this year, according to Thomas Christie, the Defense Department’s director of operational test and evaluation.

But the cause of these failures can be addressed with new training procedures, improved concepts of operations for the device, software changes and other tweaks, said proponents of the radio system.

Christie believes these fixes are within reach and recommends that the Air Force, which manages the program for the services, prepare for full-rate production and continue fielding while ironing out remaining problems.

“The most important factors of recovery operations are short response time and precision location of the survivor,” Christie wrote in his August 2004 report. “CSEL can provide both these needs if suitability issues are addressed.”

Designed to replace Vietnam-era rescue radios, CSEL puts state-of-the-art communications in the hands of downed pilots, allowing them to figure out their location and rapidly call for help over a secure line.

The CSEL radio is a software-programmable device that bounces messages off satellites, which means isolated individuals can relay those messages great distances. It also taps into the Global Positioning System to provide location.

In nearly 6,000 hours of testing conducted by the services, Christie determined that CSEL is operationally effective. It could quickly provide secure, over-the-horizon data; rapidly relay precise location information; and quickly authenticate a survivor’s identity. The navigation tools also helped “downed” pilots evade capture and independently navigate to a safer area.

But the radios are more complex than the older devices they replace, which has led to some complications in tests that make CSEL “not operationally suitable,” said Christie, who noted that 16 of 91 recovery mission attempts during the testing period failed.

Failures cited in tests included both mechanical glitches such as power drainage and water intrusion as well as some “procedural/training” shortfalls.

Improving message reliability from rescue centers back to survivors and reducing the time between failures are two issues that must be addressed, he said.

The services also must improve training and flesh out concepts for operating the new device, and the Joint Staff needs to appoint an operational agency to manage the CSEL architecture system, according to Christie.

Many of the recommendations already are being put into effect, officials said.

“Being a new program, it’s going to go through its teething pains,” said CSEL program manager Air Force Maj. Dave Micheletti. “We think it’s only going to get better, and it should.”

Software modifications promise to improve message reliability by 20 percent, and steps are being taken to enhance training, he said.

The Army, for example, has ponied up funding for expert trainers who are working with Army units preparing to rotate to Iraq, and the Navy also has updated its training and doctrine to reflect recent CSEL experience, Micheletti said.

“As we see it enter the field and start being deployed, there are going to be some smart NCOs and smart airmen and smart sailors [who] are going to recognize better ways to [recommend] improvement across the board,” Micheletti said.

The requirement for such a program was laid out in 1992 but didn’t take root until 1995, when Air Force F-16 pilot Capt. Scott O’Grady was shot down while enforcing the no-fly zone over Bosnia.

O’Grady’s six-day ordeal of evading Bosnian Serbs hunting him, which ended when he was rescued by U.S. Marines, put a focus on problems with existing rescue radios, particularly the lack of satellite communications, the absence of any means to identify a downed pilot’s location and the emission of signals that could be traced by the enemy.

CSEL’s development was slowed by technical challenges and a growing list of capabilities commanders wanted the radio to have.

While aircrews waited for CSEL, the services began buying HOOK-112 radios, intended as an interim solution. But rescue experts say the HOOK-112 will continue to be used side by side for years with CSEL.

More than 3,000 CSEL radios have been delivered by Boeing so far under a low-rate initial production contract, including deliveries to operational units.

Staff writer Bruce Rolfsen contributed to this report.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=0-MARINEPAPER-391353.php

Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 07:07 AM
Post-war planning non-existent

By WARREN P. STROBEL and JOHN WALCOTT

Knight Ridder Newspapers



WASHINGTON - In March 2003, days before the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American war planners and intelligence officials met at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina to review the Bush administration's plans to oust Saddam Hussein and implant democracy in Iraq.


Near the end of his presentation, an Army lieutenant colonel who was giving a briefing showed a slide describing the Pentagon's plans for rebuilding Iraq after the war, known in the planners' parlance as Phase 4-C. He was uncomfortable with his material - and for good reason.


The slide said: "To Be Provided."


A Knight Ridder review of the administration's Iraq policy and decisions has found that it invaded Iraq without a comprehensive plan in place to secure and rebuild the country. The administration also failed to provide some 100,000 additional U.S. troops that American military commanders originally wanted to help restore order and reconstruct a country shattered by war, a brutal dictatorship and economic sanctions.


In fact, some senior Pentagon officials had thought they could bring most American soldiers home from Iraq by September 2003. Instead, more than a year later, 138,000 U.S. troops are still fighting terrorists who slip easily across Iraq's long borders, diehards from the old regime and Iraqis angered by their country's widespread crime and unemployment and America's sometimes heavy boots.


"We didn't go in with a plan. We went in with a theory," said a veteran State Department officer who was directly involved in Iraq policy.


The military's plan to defeat Saddam's army worked brilliantly and American troops have distinguished themselves on the battlefield. However, the review found that the president and many of his advisers ignored repeated warnings that rebuilding Iraq would be harder than ousting Saddam and tossed out years of planning about how to rebuild Iraq, in part because they thought pro-American Iraqi exiles and Iraqi "patriots" would quickly pick up the pieces. The CIA predicted up until the war's opening days that the Iraqi army would turn against Saddam, which never happened.


This report is based on official documents and on interviews with more than three dozen current and former civilian and military officials who participated directly in planning for the war and its aftermath. Most still support the decision to go to war but say many of the subsequent problems could have been avoided.


Every effort was made to get those who were interviewed to speak for the record, but many officials requested anonymity because they didn't want to criticize the administration publicly or because they feared retaliation.


One official who was deeply involved in the pre-war planning effort - and was critical of it - initially agreed but then declined to cooperate after expressing concern that the Justice Department might pursue a reporter's telephone records in an effort to hunt down critics of the administration's policies.


Some senior officials spoke up about their concerns for the first time. President Bush and top officials in Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's office never responded to repeated requests for interviews. They've publicly defended their plans for the invasion and its aftermath, and now some top officials are blaming the CIA for failing to predict the messy aftermath of Saddam's fall.


The United States and interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi are now taking steps to defeat the Iraqi insurgency and permit national elections scheduled for January. They've negotiated an agreement to disarm some of the militia led by radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr and are pressing an offensive against Sunni rebels. After more than a year of internal squabbling, U.S. military commanders, intelligence officers and diplomats in Baghdad are acting as a team.


But the hole created by the absence of an adequate plan to rebuild Iraq, the failure to provide enough troops to secure the country, the misplaced faith in Iraqi exiles and other mistakes made after Baghdad fell is a deep one.


"We've finally got our act together, but we're all afraid it may be too late," said one senior official who's engaged daily in Iraq policy.


The Bush administration's failure to plan to win the peace in Iraq was the product of many of the same problems that plagued the administration's case for war, including wishful thinking, bad information from Iraqi exiles who said Iraqis would welcome American troops as liberators and contempt for dissenting opinions.


However, the administration's planning for postwar Iraq differed in one crucial respect from its erroneous pre-war claims about Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and links to al Qaida.


The U.S. intelligence community had been divided about the state of Saddam's weapons programs, but there was little disagreement among experts throughout the government that winning the peace in Iraq could be much harder than winning a war.


"The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious," warned an Army War College report that was completed in February 2003, a month before the invasion. Without an "overwhelming" effort to prepare for the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the report warned: "The United States may find itself in a radically different world over the next few years, a world in which the threat of Saddam Hussein seems like a pale shadow of new problems of America's own making."


A half-dozen intelligence reports also warned that American troops could face significant postwar resistance. This foot-high stack of material was distributed at White House meetings of Bush's top foreign policy advisers, but there's no evidence that anyone ever acted on it.


"It was disseminated. And ignored," said a former senior intelligence official.


The Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency was particularly aggressive in its forecasts, officials said. One briefing occurred in January 2003. Another, in April 2003, weeks after the war began, discussed Saddam's plans for attacking U.S. forces after his troops had been defeated on the battlefield.


Similar warnings came from the Pentagon's Joint Staff, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the CIA's National Intelligence Council. The council produced reports in January 2003 titled "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq" and "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq."


continued........

thedrifter
10-18-04, 07:07 AM
Unlike the 1991 Persian Gulf War, in which Iraqi troops were trying to maintain their grip on Kuwait, "they are now defending their country," said a senior defense official, summarizing the Joint...

thedrifter
10-18-04, 07:08 AM
Grunts, Battery Battle Insurgents in Haswa
by Lance Cpl. Zachary R. Frank
Marine Corps News
October 15, 2004

FORWARD OPERATING BASE ISKANDARIYAH, Iraq -- Combined arms tactics have been a part of Marine Corps warfighting doctrine for years. It allows Marines to dial up their intensity to overcome their enemies. In Iraq, the practice is working well.

Recently, while conducting a counter-mortar patrol in the town of Haswa, Iraq, a squad of Marines from Alpha Company, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, used combined arms when they were ambushed by a group of Iraqi insurgents.

The insurgents opened up on the squad with small-arms fire as they were passing through the vicinity of Haswa's old police station.

The Marines then began returning fire, and an intense firefight ensued.

M-240G machine gunners began laying down a base of fire as the rest of the squad worked to gain fire superiority over the enemy who was well hidden in the surrounding buildings.
With the squad laying down a heavy amount of fire, enemy rounds continued to bounce off their vehicles. Three Marines were injured, two of them seriously. With no way to stop the enemy's barrage of gunfire from their hiding places in the building's, Marines called the battalion's headquarters for fire support.

One of the injured Marines, Pfc. Michael P. Savoie, of Westwego, La, had his Kevlar helmet shot. The round entered his helmet and penetrated deep enough to cause a cut to the left side of his head before exiting the helmet. The enemy round struck him early in the engagement, but his wound didn't keep him out of the fight. He jumped back on his gun and continued to fire, having to wipe blood out of his eyes to see.

The battalion then forwarded the squad's fire-support request to the Marines of Bravo Battery, who responded with blazing guns.

After receiving and processing the request, the cannoneers sent six rounds hurling toward targets called in by Alpha Company.

With the added firepower, the squad easily overpowered the enemy and began to assess their damage and care for the wounded.

"Once artillery started firing, (the insurgents') rate of fire dropped drastically," said Sgt. Robert Ballance, 24, a Springfield, Ill., native and squad leader with Alpha Company.
Within three minutes of receipt of the call, the battery had launched its fire mission to support the infantryman.

"We have a very real concept of this situation, and we're ready to quickly assist whenever necessary," said Staff Sgt. Richard W. Musard, 38, the battery operations chief, and a native of Richmond, Va. "We have the capability of putting out a round in thirty seconds if needed."

"Our mission is to provide accurate and timely artillery fire every time it's necessary," said Musard.

"It was pretty much over once they started firing," Said Savoie.


Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 07:09 AM
Shoe drive for Iraq nets 10,000 pairs


By Fred Zimmerman, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, October 16, 2004


CAMP LESTER, Okinawa — One soldier in Iraq has proved that one simple e-mail calling out for help can make a big difference.

Army Sgt. Addie Collins, who works for American Forces Network, sent a message asking her family not to send her care packages. Instead, she asked, send packages of used and new shoes for children in Iraq.

That message has been forwarded not only throughout the United States but also to Okinawa, where staff members at the U.S. Naval Hospital rallied for the cause.

The e-mail has netted Collins more than 10,000 pairs of shoes for the Kicks for Kids program, she said in a phone interview Tuesday. Almost 900 of those came from the hospital here.

When Petty Officer 1st Class Ron Hermosilla, Pathology Laboratory leading petty officer, heard shoes were needed for children in Iraq, he asked for volunteers to help. Petty Officer 1st Class Maria Webb, radiology technician; Petty Officer 2nd Class Agnes Salas, laboratory technician; and Seaman Chandler Cunningham, biomedical technician, volunteered their time. The team set up four drop boxes in the hospital.

The reaction was immediate.

“In the first week we received 100 pairs of shoes,” Hermosilla said.

The group initially planned to hold the drive for one month, but they continued it for two and a half months; the last of the shoes were mailed to Collins on Wednesday. In all, 866 pairs of shoes — from sandals to hiking boots — in 22 boxes were sent.

Salas said not only hospital staffers, but also patients and staff members of the various branch medical clinics donated.

“It makes me feel good … coming from a Third World country, I know how expensive it is to get a good pair of shoes,” said Webb, who is originally from the Philippines.

Collins said the 10,000-plus pairs of shoes for both children and adults currently are sitting in a storage area. She said she had scheduled several trips to distribute them in Iraqi communities, but each time the trip was canceled due to security concerns. Collins said she hopes to make her first trip this weekend.

“I want to make sure every child and person gets a pair of shoes if they need them,” Collins said.

The idea for the program came to her when she was about to throw out an old pair of running shoes, she said. She’d noticed that many Iraqis’ shoes were in poor condition at best, so she decided to give her old shoes to an Iraqi man who cleans trailers where she lives. After that, she sent the e-mail that started the shoe drive.

“I wasn’t expecting this many pairs of shoes,” Collins said.

She’s received boxes of shoes from all over, including Duke University, churches from throughout the States and even the “Today” show.

Collins, a reservist, is to leave Iraq next month but said she hopes the program will continue and she can help run it from the States. She said she also would like to expand the program to other countries where U.S. troops are deployed.

“Individually,” she said, “it makes me feel that I’ve achieved something here.”

Write Maj. Steven Stewart, CPA CJTF-7, PAO Baghdad, APO AE 09316, to donate shoes to the program or for more information

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=24083&archive=true

Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 08:32 AM
United States Marines begin raids on Fallujah
Publish Date : 10/18/2004 10:33:00 AM Source : World News Onlypunjab.com

.S. Marines launched air and ground attacks yesterday on the rebel bastion Fallujah after city representatives suspended peace talks with the government over Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's demand to hand over terror mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi.
The raids began hours after terrorists struck deep inside Baghdad's heavily fortified green zone, setting off bombs at a market and a popular cafe that killed at least 10 persons — including four Americans — and wounded 20 others in the compound housing foreign embassies and Iraqi government offices.



It was the deadliest attack inside the 4-square-mile compound since the U.S. occupation began in May 2003.
Zarqawi's terror group, Tawhid and Jihad, claimed responsibility for the suicide attacks, according to a statement posted on an Islamist Web site.
Late yesterday, residents of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, reported shuddering American bombardments using planes and armored vehicles in what they said was the most intensive shelling since U.S. forces began weeks of "precision strikes" aimed at Zarqawi's network.
In Washington, however, a senior military official, speaking on operational matters on the condition of anonymity, described the latest fighting as strikes against specific targets and of the same scope as previous attacks in Fallujah.
Warplanes and artillery pounded the city as two U.S. Marine battalions attacked rebel positions to "restore security and stability," 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert, a spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, told CNN.
"It is going to be a long night," he said.
Maj. Francis Piccoli, spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said two Marine battalions were engaged in the fight backed up by aircraft.
He would not indicate the attack was the start of a major campaign to recapture the city, saying he did not want to jeopardize any future operations.
Maj. Piccoli said the goal of the operation was to "disrupt the capabilities of the anti-Iraqi forces."
U.S. officials believe Zarqawi's terrorist group is based in Fallujah. The military said its targets were linked to the network, including a building being used to store weapons, two safe houses used to plan attacks, several illegal checkpoints and a weapons cache.
At least five persons were killed and 16 wounded in the raids, according to Fallujah General Hospital.
Residents said the Americans were attacking several areas with rockets, artillery and tanks. One resident said U.S. forces were using loudspeakers in the west of the city to urge Fallujah fighters to lay down their arms "because we are going to push into Fallujah."
Mr. Allawi warned Wednesday that Fallujah must surrender Zarqawi and other foreign fighters or face military attack.
Abu Asaad, spokesman for the religious council of Fallujah, said that "handing over Zarqawi" was an "impossible condition" since even the Americans were unable to catch him.
"Since we exhausted all peaceful solutions, the city is now ready to bear arms and defend its religion and honor and it's not afraid of Allawi's statements," Mr. Asaad said in an interview with Al Jazeera television.
The suicide bombings in Baghdad's green zone took place about 12:40 p.m. on the eve of the Islamic holy month, Ramadan.
The U.S.-guarded enclave — home to about 10,000 Iraqis, government officials, foreign diplomats and military personnel — spreads along the banks of the Tigris River in the heart of the capital. The area's trees and other greenery present a sharp contrast to the rest of dusty and arid Baghdad. The zone is centered on Saddam Hussein's mammoth Republican Palace, and there are dozens of smaller palatial buildings.
A waiter and restaurant patrons saw two men enter the Green Zone Cafe clutching large bags. One appeared nervous while the other seemed to be trying to reassure him, they said.
The two men ordered tea and talked for about 20 minutes — a waiter thought they spoke with Jordanian accents. The more confident of the two then walked out and hailed a taxi, the witnesses said. Minutes later a loud explosion rocked the compound.
The blast left a gaping crater in the pavement where the canopied restaurant once stood. Splatters of blood and pieces of flesh were scattered among the twisted metal, shards of glass and upended plastic chairs littering the scene. Thick, black smoke billowed from the compound.
"People were screaming ... stampeding, trying to get out," said Mohammed al-Obeidi, the owner of a nearby restaurant who was wounded by flying glass from the blast.
Two Iraqis were killed at the cafe and several U.S. Embassy employees suffered minor injuries there, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.
Four American employees of DynCorp security company were killed and two State Department employees were wounded in the blast in a vendor's alley near the U.S. Embassy annex. The outdoor bazaar caters to Westerners, selling everything from mobile phone accessories to pornographic DVDs.
The DynCorp employees who were killed include John Pinsonneault, 39, of North Branch, Minn.; Steve Osborne, 40, of Kennesaw, Ga.; and Eric Miner, 44, of South Windham, Conn. Ferdinand Ibaboa, 36, of Mesa, Ariz., was missing and presumed dead.
The green zone is a regular target of terrorists. Mortar rounds are frequently fired at the compound, and there have also been a number of deadly car bombings at its gates. Last week, a bomb was found in front of the Green Zone Cafe but did not explode.
Mr. al-Obeidi said security in the zone has weakened since Iraqi police took a greater role with the June transfer of power.
"Before it was really safe. They [the Americans] passed it over to the Iraqis ... the Iraqi Police. When they see someone they know, it's just, 'Go on in.' They don't understand it's for our safety," he said.
Following yesterday's attack, the U.S. military said intelligence reports indicated terrorists were planning more strikes to "gain media attention."
Security measures in the capital and surrounding areas would be "significantly increased for an undetermined period," a military statement said. They include more armed patrols, intensified security at Baghdad airport and elsewhere, and air patrols.
U.S. Embassy personnel were instructed to remain inside the embassy complex until further notice, Mr. Boucher said.
Across the Tigris River, two U.S. soldiers were killed yesterday in eastern Baghdad — one when his patrol came under small arms fire, the other in a roadside bombing — the U.S. command said. Two more American soldiers were killed when their Humvee was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade and caught fire during a raid in Ramadi, 70 miles west of the capital, the military said.

http://www.onlypunjab.com/fullstory904-insight-Marines+begin+raids+on+Fallujah-status-2-newsID-5352.html


Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 09:34 AM
THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
7 GIs Die in Crashes and Attacks in Iraq

By Ashraf Khalil and Said Rifai, Times Staff Writers


BAGHDAD — Two U.S. Army helicopters crashed in Baghdad on Saturday, killing two soldiers, as the military reported that five other American troops had died elsewhere in Iraq. Insurgents also firebombed five Christian churches in the capital, causing damage but no injuries.

Military officials said they were still investigating what caused the helicopters to crash Saturday evening in southwest Baghdad. Two other soldiers were wounded in the crashes.

The other American deaths occurred in two incidents in northern Iraq and one in central Iraq. A suicide car bomber struck a U.S. patrol near the town of Qaim near the Syrian border Friday, killing two soldiers, one Marine and an Iraqi interpreter, the U.S. military reported Saturday.

Another soldier, Spc. Alan J. Burgess, 24, of Landaff, N.H., died of injuries suffered Friday in a car bombing near Mosul, about 220 miles north of the capital. Marine Lance Cpl. Brian K. Schramm, 22, of Rochester, N.Y., was killed in Babil province, south of Baghdad, on Friday.

The names of the others were withheld pending family notification.

In the Sunni Triangle city of Fallouja, west of Baghdad, many residents fled Saturday in anticipation of a U.S. military invasion after negotiations with city leaders broke down a day earlier. U.S. forces yielded control of the rebel focal point in April and haven't patrolled the city since. On Saturday night, American warplanes launched airstrikes against reported militant strongholds in Fallouja.

Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has issued an ultimatum to Falloujans to turn over Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi, believed to be responsible for a series of car bombings and beheadings in Iraq.

U.S. authorities suspect that Zarqawi is operating openly in the city.

U.S. forces and the Iraqi government are on a sustained military and political push to end parallel Sunni and Shiite rebellions and secure the country before parliamentary elections scheduled for January. In both cases, the political approaches appear to be faltering.

In Baghdad's Shiite bastion of Sadr City, militants from radical cleric Muqtada Sadr's Al Mahdi militia continued to turn over weapons as part of a peace agreement to end weeks of violent clashes in the tightly packed slum. But U.S. military officials have said they believed that the vast majority of weaponry remains at large, and the weapons transfer, originally scheduled to end Friday, has been extended through today.

The series of coordinated, early-morning church attacks was the latest strike against the Christian minority in this predominantly Muslim country. In August, 11 people were killed when insurgents bombed five churches in Baghdad and Mosul.

The bombers struck between 4 and 5:45 a.m. In several cases, a small bomb was placed between the outer walls and main church building.

The Roman Catholic church in the central Karada neighborhood sustained the heaviest damage. Windows were shattered, part of a wall was destroyed and doors were knocked off their hinges. Walls were scorched.

St. Jacob's Church in the southeast Baghdad neighborhood of Dora suffered only minimal damage — scorch marks were visible on the outer wall, but the stained-glass windows were intact.

Father Saad Sirop of St. Jacob's said two altar boys who were staying overnight at the church saw a dark Opel station wagon drive up and two people plant the bomb, but they were too frightened to tell anyone. It exploded moments later, but the boys weren't hurt.

Sirop called on Allawi's government to improve security for Baghdad's increasingly besieged Christian community.

"We cannot take security into our own hands — this is the government's business," he said. "This definitely encourages the migration of the Christian community from Iraq."

The wave of church bombings occurred as fliers were distributed in at least three neighborhoods warning of a violent insurgent campaign. The message, in the name of the Shura Council of the Iraqi Islamic Resistance, advised residents to stay in their homes and came at the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

"The whole area of Iraq will be a zone of fire and a battlefront against the occupier and his allies, using all kinds of weapons," the flier warned. "This time it is going to be a nonstop battle."

Father Zeya Yousef of St. George's Church in Dora praised the response of local residents to the 4:15 a.m. blast.

Muslims and Christians alike rushed to help extinguish the ensuing fire. "Whoever is behind this incident is trying to instigate sedition on a religious level," he said.

But Yousef predicted they wouldn't succeed.

"This is nothing compared to the historical suffering [Christians] have had to endure along with all Iraqis," he said.

The future of the fledgling peace agreement with Sadr, meanwhile, hinges on the extent to which U.S. and Iraqi leaders are satisfied that the Al Mahdi militia has disarmed. So far, the military is expressing frustration with the progress.

Capt. Brian O'Malley, a spokesman for the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division, said the number of weapons surrendered was just a small fraction of Sadr City's hidden arsenal. "We still haven't seen the numbers we were expecting," he said, particularly for heavy weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades, submachine guns and explosives.

"We need to have thousands and thousands of different kinds of heavy weapons," he said. "So far, we've only broken 1,000 in one category."

During the first days of the transfer, which started Monday, residents mostly turned in weapons that were "unserviceable and old, basically not the type of weapons that show" the Al Mahdi militia is serious about disarmament, O'Malley said.

On Friday, heavier, newer weapons such as mortar shells and RPGs were turned in — occasionally by known Mahdi fighters.

"We received two antiaircraft guns in perfect working order," O'Malley said. "The guys who turned it in said, 'Yeah, we've been shooting at your helicopters.' "

The weapons transfer is being run by the Iraqi government, with U.S. troops providing security. But U.S. forces will certainly play a large role in any military push through Sadr City should the final count of weapons turned in be deemed insufficient. Iraqi government and police officials have been meeting nightly with Sadr representatives and making clear their dissatisfaction, O'Malley said.

Sadr spokesman Mahmoud Sudani brushed off U.S. complaints about the hand-over, saying that they come "after five days of receiving weapons from morning to evening. Is it a pretext to launch a new attack and detain our youth after the agreement? I think they are preparing to re-attack the city."

*


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Special correspondent Raheem Salman in Baghdad contributed to this report.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fg-iraq17oct17,1,4670515.story

Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 09:59 AM
Iraq to Widen Arms Amnesty, Bring Falluja to Heel

By Alistair Lyon

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq (news - web sites)'s interim government will declare a nationwide arms amnesty next week, but insists the city of Falluja must turn in foreign militants or face assault, National Security Adviser Kassim Daoud said Monday.


Daoud would not be drawn on the timing of a Falluja offensive if the city did not hand over militants led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, America's top enemy in Iraq. "We have a timetable and we will stick to it," he told Reuters.


U.S. forces released overnight Falluja's chief negotiator, whom they detained Friday, after day-long battles and air strikes on the outskirts of the rebel-held Sunni Muslim stronghold west of Baghdad.


The interim government has vowed to crack down on insurgents and pacify Iraq before elections due in January.


"Next week, we will announce a nationwide arms collection drive," said Daoud, but gave few details of the arms amnesty.


In a country awash in weaponry, Iraqis are permitted to keep personal guns, such as pistols and assault rifles, at home. Previous gun amnesties since last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq have involved heavier weapons.


Daoud said a cash-for-weapons scheme already under way in Baghdad's Sadr City district, a stronghold for Shi'ite militants, had been extended to Thursday.


He said many people still wanted to disarm in Sadr City. "It would not be fair to search houses now when these people have not had enough time to turn over their weapons."


Loyalists of fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had been fighting U.S. troops in Sadr City before the arms handover was agreed.


Falluja, a hotbed of Sunni insurgency, is an even tougher challenge for the interim government and its U.S. backers.


"I think the residents of Falluja don't want this sort of peace. They want real peace, not a peace that stabs in the back and strikes and destroys homes and kills women," Falluja representative Khaled al-Jumaili said after his release.


U.S. marines detained the bearded cleric Friday while he was taking his family out of the city for safety.


QUEST FOR ZARQAWI


Residents said Falluja was relatively quiet after Sunday's fierce battles, in which hospital officials said four civilians were killed and 12 wounded. A child was among the dead.


Falluja residents, enraged by U.S. air strikes that they say kill civilians, deny knowledge of Zarqawi's network.


Asked what evidence the government has that Zarqawi's group is operating in Falluja, Daoud said: "There are many of his followers, Jihadists (holy warriors). The proof is there."


Jumaili said the hunt for Zarqawi was a pretext to attack Falluja, comparing it to U.S. assertions that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had weapons of mass destruction before last year's invasion.





Zarqawi, who has a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head, has declared loyalty to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) for the first time, according to a statement posted on the Internet.

"We announce that the Tawhid wal Jihad (One God and Holy War) Group, its prince and soldiers, have pledged allegiance to the sheikh of the mujahideen Osama bin Laden," said the statement purportedly from Zarqawi's group.

Washington says Zarqawi is al Qaeda's link to Iraq but the statement was the first by the group to announce its allegiance to bin Laden's network, which carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 hijacked airliner attacks on U.S. cities.

Britain is considering a U.S. request to move troops now based in southern Iraq into more potentially dangerous areas to cover for U.S. units battling rebels in Falluja and elsewhere.

Officials say Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon will confirm the request to parliament later Monday, but will stress he has made no decision yet. Any such deployment would reignite anger in Britain over Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites)'s support for the war.

Insurgents struck at Iraq's fledgling security forces again with a car bomb blast near a Baghdad cafe used by Iraqi police. The U.S. military said eight people were killed, including a policeman, and 28 wounded, in the Sunday night attack.

Earlier, a car bomb that blew up in traffic killed five people and wounded 15 in the northern city of Mosul. The beheaded body of an Iraqi translator employed by U.S. troops was found near Baiji, north of Baghdad, police said.

An Australian television journalist was held hostage for 24 hours at the weekend before being released unharmed

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041018/wl_nm/iraq_dc_540


Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 12:16 PM
Exit Strategies For Iraq
Christian Science Monitor
October 18, 2004

While George W. Bush and John Kerry disagree on the legitimacy of the war in Iraq and how the occupation is being carried out, they generally share the same views on a U.S. exit strategy.

But just as the planning for the peace proved overly optimistic, so, too, could the candidates' ideas about withdrawal.

Both men, though acknowledging a worsening insurgency, expect to work with an Iraqi government that gains in legitimacy and strength and wants American troops to stick around until they're no longer needed.

Both men forswear cutting and running. While Mr. Kerry says that if he were elected, he would begin withdrawing troops within the first six months of his administration, he's giving himself a whole term to get them all out. Mr. Bush says U.S. troops will stay as long as necessary and no longer, but the U.S. Army says it plans to maintain current levels at least through 2007.

As the occupation has shown, though, facts on the ground don't have much respect for best-case scenarios. It is not at all out of the realm of possibility, for instance, that a government hostile to the United States could be elected, and demand the U.S. leave earlier than expected - risking civil war in Iraq.

A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll in April found that while the majority of Iraqis said they would feel less secure without the coalition, 57 percent said foreign troops should leave anyway. One can only imagine that this sentiment has hardened and spread in the intervening months, and that when election campaigning begins in Iraq, a good many candidates will stump on a send-the-Yankees-home platform.

If they dominated the newly elected national assembly, they could ask the coalition forces to leave under the theory that those very forces perpetuate the insurgency. If the coalition leaves prematurely, though, Iraq risks breaking up.

This chain of events does not have to be. Some Iraqi experts believe that U.S.-backed interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi will marshal a political coalition that wins in the expected January elections.

Still, with the CIA giving three not-very-hopeful outlooks for Iraq (the worst being civil war, the best being tenuous stability), it would be unwise to count on the best outcome.

The candidates may not want to talk about anything less than the best-case scenario out of concern for dampening troop morale or boosting the insurgents. But inside their respective headquarters, let's hope they're seriously considering them all.

Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 12:51 PM
General Reported Shortages In Iraq

Mon Oct 18, 7:40 AM ET

By Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writer

The top U.S. commander in Iraq (news - web sites) complained to the Pentagon (news - web sites) last winter that his supply situation was so poor that it threatened Army troops' ability to fight, according to an official document that has surfaced only now.


The lack of key spare parts for gear vital to combat operations, such as tanks and helicopters, was causing problems so severe, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez wrote in a letter to top Army officials, that "I cannot continue to support sustained combat operations with rates this low."


Senior Army officials said that most of Sanchez's concerns have been addressed in recent months but that they continue to keep a close eye on the problems he identified. The situation is "substantially better" now, said Gary Motsek, deputy director of operations for the Army Materiel Command.


Sanchez, who was the senior commander on the ground in Iraq from the summer of 2003 until the summer of 2004, said in his letter that Army units in Iraq were "struggling just to maintain . . . relatively low readiness rates" on key combat systems, such as M-1 Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, anti-mortar radars and Black Hawk helicopters.


He also said units were waiting an average of 40 days for critical spare parts, which he noted was almost three times the Army's average. In some Army supply depots in Iraq, 40 percent of critical parts were at "zero balance," meaning they were absent from depot shelves, he said.


He also protested in his letter, sent Dec. 4 to the number two officer in the Army, with copies to other senior officials, that his soldiers still needed protective inserts to upgrade 36,000 sets of body armor but that their delivery had been postponed twice in the month before he was writing. There were 131,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the time.


In what appears to be a plea to top officials to spur the bureaucracy to respond more quickly, Sanchez concluded, "I cannot sustain readiness without Army-level intervention."


Sanchez, who since has moved back to his permanent base in Germany, did not respond to telephone and e-mail messages seeking comment.


His letter of concern has surfaced after repeated statements by President Bush (news - web sites) that he is determined to ensure that U.S. troops fighting in Iraq have all that they need to execute their missions. "I have pledged, as has the secretary of defense, to give our troops everything that is necessary to complete their mission with the utmost safety," he said in May. Earlier this month in Manchester, N.H., he said, "When America puts our troops in combat, I believe they deserve the best training, the best equipment, the full support of our government."


A copy of Sanchez's letter was given to The Washington Post by a person familiar with the situation who was dismayed that front-line troops had not been adequately supplied. That person also disagrees with the Bush administration's handling of Iraq, but said that was not part of the motivation in providing the document.


The disclosure of Sanchez's concerns also follows recent comments by former ambassador L. Paul Bremer, Sanchez's civilian counterpart in running the U.S. occupation of Iraq, that he believed more troops were needed in Iraq and had asked the Bush administration to send them.


Lt. Gen. Claude V. Christianson, the senior logistics officer on the Army staff at the Pentagon, said the readiness problems in Iraq peaked last fall but largely have been addressed. He said they were caused by a combination of problems in the supply pipeline and an unexpectedly high pace of combat operations as the Iraqi insurgency flared last year.


"All of a sudden, at the end of July [2003], the insurgency started to do that IED business all over Iraq," he noted, using the acronym for "improvised explosive device," the military's term for roadside bombs. In response, the pace, or "operating tempo," for U.S. troops jumped, causing them to use their tanks and other armored vehicles at much higher rates than had been expected.


"The tanks are operating at 3,000 to 4,000 miles a year," Christianson said, which he noted is about five times the rate they are driven while being used for training at their home bases. The readiness rate for M-1 Abrams tanks fell to 78 percent last October, he said, compared with an Army standard of 90 percent. Because of the intensity of recent operations, said Motsek of the Army Materiel Command, the readiness rate for the tanks recently dropped from 95 percent to 83 percent.


Readiness rates also generally dipped last spring when insurgents destroyed seven bridges along the main supply route from Kuwait to Baghdad, Christianson said. In some cases, he said, supplies were cut off for "several days."


But he said the supply situation has improved since then, even as the pace of U.S. combat operations has remained intense. The waiting period for critical spare parts in Iraq is now about 24 days, about half of what it was when Sanchez wrote his letter, Christianson said.


The body armor problem -- which had become a hot-button issue with Congress after some families bought protective armor privately and shipped it to their relatives in the Army in Iraq -- was solved sooner, Christianson noted, with all troops in Iraq equipped with updated gear by the end of January, about seven weeks after Sanchez wrote his letter.





Christianson said Sanchez sent only one such statement of concern from Iraq. "It's the only one we received from Rick that had anything to do with readiness," he said. He said he had not been shocked by the letter because Army logisticians were aware of the problems, agreed with Sanchez's assessment of them and already were taking steps to remedy them.

Motsek said the readiness of ground combat systems such as tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles remains a concern but no longer must be handled on an "emergency" basis, with tracks and other heavy parts being shipped by air. "We are now at the point where we can routinely ship tracks" by sea, which is far less expensive, he said. That is mainly because the manufacturing capacity to produce tracks has expanded to meet the unexpected surge in demand caused by fighting in Iraq, he said.

Sanchez's letter was sent after the most intense insurgent offensive the U.S.-led occupation force had seen up to that point. In a series of attacks that coincided with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan near the end of October last year, 87 U.S. service members were killed. Under Islam's lunar calendar, Ramadan this year began a few days ago.

Staff writer Mike Allen contributed to this report.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&e=19&u=/washpost/20041018/ts_washpost/a40321_2004oct17

Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 02:39 PM
FALLOUJA
Fight to Finish This Time?

By F.J. Bing West, F.J. Bing West, an assistant secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration, visits Iraq frequently as a military journalist. His book, "No True Glory, the Battle for Fallouja," will be published b


For weeks, Marines have paced like chained bulldogs on the outskirts of the Iraqi city of Fallouja, lunging and growling but restrained from going in.

On Thursday, the U.S. and Iraqis sent these forces to conduct raids inside this bastion of Sunni violence, while Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, warned that unless insurgents turn over a notorious terrorist the Marines and Iraqi troops will storm in and take control once and for all.

The last time Marines marched into Fallouja, they were promptly ordered to do something that runs counter to their creed: pull back short of the goal. That was a mistake. But the decision-makers this time have apparently learned.

It was on March 31 that a gleeful mob killed four civilian American contractors and mutilated their bodies in Fallouja. President Bush ordered Marines to take the city. On foot, they seized block after block, losing six Marines in the fight.

Although U.S. forces had refrained from unleashing their artillery, the Arabic television channel Al Jazeera made the attack look as if it were destroying the city. On April 9, Allawi, Ghazi Ajil Yawer, a Sunni Muslim and tribal leader, and other Iraqi politicians persuaded L. Paul Bremer III, then the U.S. administrative chief in Iraq, to declare a cease-fire.

The Marines objected. Like Rome's legions, Marines are feared because they never turn back. They figured they were two days from finishing the fight. The White House overruled them.

With CIA assistance, the Marines accepted an offer from former Iraqi generals and let an all-Iraqi brigade of insurgents and former members of Saddam Hussein's regime into the city, with the agreement that they would eject all foreign fighters and turn over any heavy weapons. In exchange, the Marines had to stay out of Fallouja.

Over the next several months, the jihadists metastasized unchecked. Former members of the old regime, the terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi and radical mullahs turned the city into the bloody lair of kidnappers and suicide bombers, imposed a Taliban-like rule and hacked the heads off Americans, Britons, Koreans and Iraqis, often as videotape rolled.

Last week, after U.S. and Iraqi forces seized the city of Samarra from insurgents, the Fallouja rebels decided to cut a deal.

On Oct. 8, Yawer, now Iraq's interim president, declared that the insurgents were on the verge of agreeing again, as they had in April, to eject foreign fighters, turn over heavy weapons and accept the Iraqi national guard — if, once again, officials in Baghdad guaranteed that Americans would not attack the city.

Two competing theories attempt to explain this deja vu offer of a deal.

The first sees it as a classic insurgent ploy: Attack when strong, and stall by negotiations when weak. Thirty-five years ago, Hanoi played its weak hand brilliantly, and Fallouja is showing equal verve for the approach. In April, the insurgents' bluff was that the Marines would have to kill them all, creating a mess that would rattle global Islam. Never mind that the actual destruction was light by historical comparison; Al Jazeera provided grisly close-ups to suggest otherwise.

Now the insurgents, one of whose key negotiators was a ringleader in the August beheading of an Iraqi national guard battalion commander in Fallouja, were using the same technique. We're too tough to take without a fight, they were telling Yawer and Allawi, but if you keep out the Americans, we'll let you send in the Iraqi national guard.

That's a terrific deal for the insurgents, who have proved that they don't need heavy weapons or foreign fighters to co-opt, intimidate and slaughter any Iraqi security force sent into the city without American troops.

The second and more benign theory is that the insurgents want only to throw out the American infidel invader, and that once the Baghdad government allows that to happen, Fallouja — called "the bomb factory" by our troops — will be peaceful.

According to this theory, the city's disenfranchised Sunnis, Wahhabists, Baathists and terrorists hold no agendas inherently inimical to democracy.

Before President Yawer buys this theory, he should require the insurgents to sign a loyalty oath and publish it. If the insurgents intend to be good citizens, this should not be an affront to them.

Yawer has said he will not countenance unnecessary violence by the U.S. military — "Each drop of Iraqi blood is dear to us." He has said that the city should not be "punished" for the transgressions of a few. This is like saying in 1943 that Berlin should not be "punished."

For the last five months, Allawi has insisted that he can woo former Baathists away from the insurgency. This has yet to happen.

A cynic might infer that the Iraqi interim government has calculated that it risks nothing by trying another "peace settlement."

This time, however, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld did not repeat the mistakes of April, when he left negotiations to the regular military and diplomatic chains of command.

Instead, on Tuesday he flew to Baghdad. Prime Minister Allawi then told the Fallouja delegation to hand over Zarqawi. Predictably, they refused. Rumsfeld and Allawi had called their bluff. That's when the Marines launched their heavy raid against Fallouja, despite Yawer's wearying complaints about the use of force.

Today, Iraq's leaders face a choice: to condone or to excise the insurgent sanctuary in this city just 25 miles from Baghdad.

The interim leaders must know that if they agree that U.S. soldiers cannot enter the city, Al Jazeera may well portray Fallouja to the Arab world as the symbol of a truly free Iraq — the city-state that emerged as the Sparta of the Middle East by throwing out the Americans who came to liberate the country. This would be a bizarre twist in a bizarre battle.

We don't know how this is going to end. Fallouja may again outfox Baghdad. By the time you read this, Zarqawi may be gone. One thing, though, is clear: The longer the Marines are kept from taking control of Fallouja, the longer Zarqawi is allowed to run free, the more Iraqis and Americans will be blown to bits.


http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-fallouja17oct17,1,6199850.story


Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 03:50 PM
October 18, 2004

Negotiator released in hopes of reviving Fallujah peace talks

By Robert H. Reid
Associated Press


BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Iraqi government on Monday released the chief negotiator for the city of Fallujah in a gesture apparently aimed at reviving peace talks to end the standoff in Iraq’s major insurgent bastion.
In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded late Sunday near a police patrol in the fashionable Jadiriyah district, killing six people, including three police officers, and wounding 26 others.

The attack came a day after insurgents ambushed and killed nine Iraqi policemen as they returned home from a training course in Jordan — the latest strikes in an insurgent campaign against Iraq’s new police force, which is seen as collaborating with the U.S.-back government.

Meanwhile, Iraqi officials said a cash-for-weapons program for Shiite fighters in Baghdad’s Sadr City and other locations was extended another two days until Tuesday.

In Fallujah, city negotiator Sheik Khaled al-Jumeili was released from U.S. custody, three days after he had been detained following the breakdown of peace talks with the Iraqi government.

Al-Jumeili, who spoke to the Associated Press from his home, said he had been detained by U.S. troops, along with three others, on Friday. Witnesses said the Islamic cleric had been picked up after he left a mosque following Friday prayers in a village about 10 miles south of Fallujah.

Al-Jumeili said the four men were taken to a Marine base outside Fallujah and then transported by helicopter to another location.

During his detention, Al-Jumeili said he was well treated by the Americans, and was not handcuffed or blindfolded like his companions. The other three men have not been released, he said.

He was released early Monday morning and arrived at his home in Fallujah at 4 am, he said. The Interior Ministry said al-Jumeili was being released on the orders of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

Al-Jumeili said he was very exhausted from his ordeal and made only one statement.

“I would like to tell all Iraqis that spies follow them everywhere and they must be vigilant,” he said.

U.S. forces have been waging days of air and ground assaults in the insurgent bastion of Fallujah, targeting key planning centers of Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his group Tawhid and Jihad, which has claimed responsibility for numerous suicide bombings and hostage beheadings.

On Sunday, an Internet statement from Tawhid and Jihad claimed allegiance to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, saying it would follow bin Laden’s orders from now on.

Allawi had demanded on Wednesday that Fallujah leaders turn over al-Zarqawi, who is believed to be in the area, or else face military action.

The latest attacks began Thursday after Fallujah clerics rejected the “impossible” demand to turn over the terrorist leader, insisting that al-Zarqawi was not in the city. Fallujah fell under control of radical clerics and their armed mujahedeen fighters after the Marines lifted their three-week siege of the city in April.

On Sunday, the crackle of automatic weapons fire and the thud of artillery echoed across Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, as fighting between American troops and insurgents raged on the eastern and southern edges of the city, witnesses said.

Clashes blocked the main road leading to Baghdad, and plumes of smoke rose above the flat-roofed houses in the city’s Askari and Shuhada neighborhoods.

Witnesses said a Humvee was seen burning in the eastern edge of the city, and hospital officials reported three civilians were killed. The U.S. military reported no casualties.

Sunday’s car bomb in Baghdad’s Jadiriyah district hit a cafe near al-Hussein Square late Sunday night, said spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman. The vehicle was loaded with 1,100 to 1,300 pounds of explosives, he said.

Abdul-Rahman said the bomb killed six people, including three policemen. Among the 26 wounded, were 11 policemen.

The cafe is located in an area with several foreign embassies and corporate offices. Brig. Peter Hutchinson, commander of Australian forces in the Middle East, said the blast occurred a few hundred yards from the Australian embassy, though no Australian casualties were reported.

“The blast was actually some distance from the embassy and our security detachment — over a few hundred meters — and there are no military personnel that were injured,” he told Australian television’s Nine network.

Elsewhere, police said nine Iraqi policemen returning from training in Jordan were ambushed and killed Saturday in Latifiyah, an insurgent stronghold 25 miles south of Baghdad. The attackers escaped. Latifiyah is part of a belt of towns just south of the capital where kidnappings and ambushes have been common.

In Sydney, Australia’s foreign minister said Monday that an Australian journalist was held hostage in Baghdad for 24 hours over the weekend before being released unharmed. The man, whose identity was not released, is the first Australian confirmed as having been held hostage in Iraq.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the man was in good condition and had asked that details surrounding his detention, including his name, not be released until he leaves Iraq.

“In this particular case the journalist went out to investigate a story, I understand, and went to a part of Baghdad he was advised not to go to, but he went there anyway ... he was detained but just for 24 hours and subsequently has been released,” Downer told Melbourne radio station 3AW.

——

Associated Press correspondent Rawya Rageh in Baghdad and an AP employee in Fallujah contributed to this report.


http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-457182.php


Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 04:17 PM
18 October

MILINET: The Butter Cutter & Kerry Remember Mom

By: Maj. Anthony F. Milavic, USMC (Ret.)

In the wake of the third presidential debate, the media has bombarded us with analyses from political pundits and, the so-called, “grass roots” view. My roots prompted me to turn to the Butter Cutter view in a virtual Mess Hall.

“Wasn’t it wonderful to finally hear the candidates, at least Sen. Kerry, illuminate what is the essential element we should look for in a president: integrity?” I asked the Butter Cutter.

“Yeah, I heard about that,” he answered. “Doesn’t ‘integrity’ mean things like being honest and telling the truth?”

I answered, “Yes, of course. It is especially the quality of possessing and steadfastly adhering to high moral principles or professional standards. “Don’t you think that someone with authority over you should have integrity--be honest?”

“Oh, I do,” the Butter Cutter responded. “And, I can see why his mom would tell him that.”

“His mom? Oh, I understand,” For a second there, the Butter Cutter had confused me. “In quoting his mother, Sen. Kerry said, ‘she just looked at me and she said, ‘Remember: integrity, integrity, integrity.’ Those are the three words that she left me with,’” I added.

“Hmmm, why do you think she said that to him?” the Butter Cutter asked.

“Well, as his mother, I guess she wanted him to remember what she thought was the most important thing for a president. You know, it was the occasion when he told her that he had decided to run for president of the United States and that was her response, her council” I told him.

The Butter Cutter stared into the bowl of ice-water in front of him, silently separating pats of butter. Rather than lifting up his head, he just kind of twisted it and lifted his eyes, asking, “But why did she say, ‘remember?’”

“Because integrity is such an important personality trait, and for emphasis, she said it three time. You must keep this in context: his mother was in the hospital near death and she wanted to leave him with something important. Isn’t that what mothers usually do!?!” I blurted out in irritation that he didn’t understand that the first time.

“Sure they do. But I think you’re missing the message here. Moms tell their kids to REMEMBER things those kids keep forgetting not things they know their kids remember! When you visited other kids for a sleep over, did your mom tell you, ‘remember to watch TV,’ ‘eat ice cream,’ and ‘drink cokes’ or did she tell you, ‘remember to say please and thank you’ and ‘remember to brush your teeth?’”

“Wait a minute! What are you saying?” I asked the Butter Cutter.

“I’m just saying that my mom and the moms of my friends never told us to ‘remember’ to do things we always remembered to do. They told us to ‘remember’ to do the things we usually didn’t do. Moms know, like most other folks—coaches, teachers, supervisors, etc.—not to question their kid’s intelligence by telling them to remember to do what they do regularly,” he answered.

I was shocked at what appeared to be an insinuation of dishonesty. “Are you saying that Sen. Kerry is a man of no integrity? Remember this is a man who has served his country as a Naval officer in Vietnam, a prosecuting attorney in Massachusetts and a U. S. Senator.’

The Butter Cutter frowned and said, “Am I saying he has no integrity? I didn’t say that! It was his mom who reminded him of integrity; that’s right, his mom! And didn’t YOU just tell me that he said, ‘Those are the three words that she left me with.’ She didn’t leave him with: ‘I love you and your glowing character will persuade the American people to shine even more love on you’; or, ‘The manifest affection you receive from your fellow Vietnam veterans in gratitude for your conspicuous loyalty and support will convince the electorate to embrace you as their loyal standard bearer’; or, ‘You've been a good Catholic, my son, and by continuing to ‘steadfastly adher[e] to high moral principles’ as you were taught in our home, in parochial school and in church, you will be elected by the American people as the paragon of integrity.’ No! The words his mom gave him to carry into the campaign were: ‘Remember: integrity, integrity, integrity!’ This mom knew her son's problem and she reminded him of it THREE TIMES!” and with that, the Butter Cutter stabbed a fork into a pat of butter driving it to the bottom of the bowl and splashing ice-water all over me.

I left the Mess Hall trying to wipe off that ice-water from my trousers and the Butter Cutter's insinuations from my mind; neither effort worked very well.

Semper Remembering Mom,

Anthony F. Milavic
Major USMC (Ret.)


Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 05:08 PM
Christians shaken by new attacks

By Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor

The acrid scent of explosives and fire hovered inside the gutted church as Iraqi Christians baptized Savio Mar Georgis.


Still, it was a moment of rebirth Sunday for the Roman Catholic church that was attacked with explosives on Saturday. Five Baghdad churches were damaged in pre-dawn attacks. There were no injuries.


Despite the damage, water was poured from a tin kettle into a large plastic bowl to create a makeshift baptismal font for a month-old boy. Gentle clapping turned into a full-throated cheer as the significance of the event sank in.


"I am very happy today," said Nabil Jamil, the church caretaker and the father of baby Savio. Jamil helped his wife and three other children escape the flames. "This fire and this bombing is death," he said. "But this baptism is new life for this church, for Christians, Muslims, and everyone in Iraq (news - web sites)."


Before Communion - the chalice and bowl were blessed on a blackened altar - the Rev. Mansur al-Mokalisy told 40 or so faithful, some in tears, not to be shaken by the latest violence aimed at Iraq's tiny and shrinking Christian minority.


"We should be strong in our hearts and work together, united," the priest said. "Thanks to our Muslim neighbors, who helped us. Let God protect our country, and let peace live in our hearts."


That is a tough message for people to accept in Iraq, where every religious and ethnic group that makes up Iraq's complex mosaic has been targeted by suicide bombs, assassinations and kidnappings.


The Baghdad church attacks reminded Christians, who represent 3% of Iraq's estimated 25 million people, of their increasing vulnerability. "They want to spark a religious conflict between Christians and Muslims, and target Christians so they will leave Iraq," said Wisam Ayoubi, a Syrian Christian professor, as he stood amid the cinders of a church on Saturday. "You can't feel free. And it's not just Christians. A lot of people are not attending classes."


Ayoubi, who graduated from New York University in the early 1980s, added: "I don't feel safe in church. Before, I used to go every Sunday. Now I don't. I have two kids, and don't want them to be hurt."


He noted the only bright side of the attacks: They were conducted early Saturday, when the churches were empty. "Everywhere there was screaming (after the blast). We went to the roof, saw the flame, and I could feel the heat from the fire on my face. Imagine if this blast happened during Mass."


Christians weren't so lucky on Aug. 1 when a string of attacks hit churches during services. At least 12 people were killed and 61 were injured. It was the first significant strike against Iraqi Christians since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Since then, Christian shopkeepers selling alcohol also have been targeted.


The tiny community is shrinking further as Christians flee the violence. Pascale Isho Warda, a Christian who is the interim government's minister for displacement and migration, estimated as many as 15,000 Christians have left the country since August, when four churches in Baghdad and one in Mosul were blown up in a coordinated series of car bombings.


"People are frightened. We are an easy target," said the Rev. Yousif Thomas Mirkis, a priest and theology professor. "I compare our community to pigeons. You do that (he claps) and they all fly."


Mirkis said he has been advising people to stay in Iraq. One reason, he said, is that by his count the community accounts for 20% of Iraq's doctors and an even larger percentage of professions like engineers and professors. "We don't want our people to leave," he said. "If I leave, it will not solve the problem. What about the Muslims? They are not our enemies."


No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, which were condemned by the Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni clerical group believed to have ties to insurgents. "Islam doesn't support the ongoing terrorism," Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abdul-Jabbar of the association said.


The Rev. Raphael Qutaimi, acting bishop of the Syrian Catholic Church, agreed that Christians should remain, but he expects many will leave. Saturday's "explosions will no doubt push people to immigrate," he said. "But this country has been ours for thousands of years. Our ancestors shed blood defending it. We mustn't leave it."


At the Roman Catholic church, caretaker Jamil had received warning of a threat from U.S. troops less than 12 hours before the blast. That convinced several in the area that the U.S. was responsible. "I think the Americans made this operation (to attack churches)," said Nadwa George, a Christian neighbor. "It could not be an Iraqi. Never, never."





Others believe that they are being persecuted because America is viewed as a Christian country. "Under the previous regime, we were protected, really. Now with the U.S., we are not," said Audet Abdal, who lives next door. "We can't go outside wearing any cross anymore," she said. "Since the U.S. came, (insurgents) think they are punishing America (by hitting Christians), because Americans are Christians."

Surah Samaan, a 25-year-old lab technician, said Christians are vulnerable in predominantly Muslim Iraq. "There's nobody to help us. Muslims have the support of their tribe. The pope is our only power but doesn't help us," she said.

She said she would like to leave Iraq for good. Where would she like to go? "Anywhere - out of the Arab world - where they all think we are infidels," she said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=676&e=7&u=/usatoday/20041018/ts_usatoday/christiansshakenbynewattacks


Ellie

thedrifter
10-18-04, 06:13 PM
Combat vet: 'I didn't want to let anyone down' <br />
Submitted by: MCRD San Diego <br />
Story by Sgt. Len Langston <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT SAN DIEGO, Calif. (October 15, 2004) -- The staff sergeant...

thedrifter
10-18-04, 06:43 PM
Steakhouse Marks Year Honoring Troops With Weekly Dinners <br />
By Samantha L. Quigley <br />
American Forces Press Service <br />
<br />
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16, 2004 -- They've been gathering at Fran O'Brien's Stadium...

thedrifter
10-18-04, 07:43 PM
Combined Operation Nets Massive Cache
American Forces Press Service

TAJI, Iraq, Oct. 18, 2004 -- More than 400 57 mm rockets, 7,275 rounds of 14.5 mm anti-aircraft ammunition, and one U.S. tube-launched optically tracked wire- guided missile were just the tip of the iceberg during a recent weapons cache discovery north of Iraq.

"We would begin digging in a new area, and we just kept finding stuff," said the 2nd Battalion, 7th Calvary Regiment senior Iraqi National Guard advisor Capt. Mark Leslie, of the 39th Brigade Combat Team.

The discovery began with a tip from a reluctant informant. Rumors had circulated within the ING camp of a citizen who knew where a very large cache of weapons was located, but fear for his life kept him from speaking with multinational forces.

"Once word got back to us, we began trying to get soldiers with the ING to bring this guy to talk to us. But the gentleman just wasn't having any of it," said ING advisor Staff Sgt. Ronald Denton, of the battalion's Headquarters Company.

Known locally as a fair and honest person, the commander of Company D, 307th ING Battalion finally convinced the man to speak with him and to ultimately work with multinational forces to recover the cache. "Had it not been for the reputation of Lieutenant Colonel Waleed within the community, I really don't think we would have ever found the cache," Denton said.

The information obtained, Company D, 307th ING Battalion supported by troopers from 2nd Bn., 7th Cav., gathered up detection equipment and headed to the location. "The location of the first site put us in the far northern region of 2-7 Cav.'s (area of operation)," explained ING advisor Sgt. 1st Class Robert Haney of Company A. "The initial cache discovery was exactly where the informant said it would be. But as we started spreading out, we kept finding more cache sites."

Fanning out from the original location, soldiers would eventually discover 12 sites, each within one kilometer of the original. The total amount of items discovered was staggering: 12 SS-30 127 mm rockets with launchers, 20 rocket mortars, multiple, varying intensity mortar rounds, and other various armaments.

As the soldiers began loading the discovered items for transport back to Camp Taji, ING soldiers noticed something just didn't seem right. "You've really got to attribute the success of this mission to the ING," said Leslie. "They live in the areas we're going to, so they know when something looks off. People are more willing to come up to them, talk to them and give them information we would probably not get.

"As we were drawing close to moving back to Taji, they came up to us and voiced their concerns and asked that we increase our search area a bit more," he said.

Working off the ING's suspicion, the troopers increased their search radius, moving further and further away from the initial site. Soon enough, the search paid off. "We found what appeared to be another significant cache location just a few (kilometers) away from the first site," said Leslie. "At that point, a quick look at our maps and we realized we were moving outside the 1st Calvary Division's AO into areas maintained by the 1st Infantry Division."

The soldiers secured the site for the evening, and the wheels were set in motion to get permission to cross operational boundaries. "As soon as we got back to Camp Taji, we started contacting 2nd (Battalion) of the 108th (Infantry) to get permission to go into their AO," Leslie said.

Even more than granting permission, unit, a New York National Guard Infantry Regiment attached to the 1st ID, sent elements to assist in the security and excavation of the site. "This is how joint operations are supposed to work," said Haney. "You request permission, it gets approved and they send soldiers down to help with the mission. That's Army teamwork!"

The second day of search operations revealed a much more significant find in terms of items seized as well the five individuals who were detained for later questioning. "We found so many mortar rounds, it was just unreal," said Denton. "And the amount of (improvised explosive device)-making material, and the list just goes on."

Included in the discovery that day was over 150 pounds of PE-4 explosive, the explosive favored by anti-Iraqi forces in the construction of vehicle-borne IEDs that have targeted multinational forces and civilians alike. Three heavy dump trucks were needed to haul the entire cache contents back to Camp Taji, where it will be disposed of.

"Everything came together like it's supposed to on this operation," said Leslie. "Everybody worked together in a joint (operation) that should make residents of Camp Taji and Camp Anaconda sleep a little easier knowing we have denied the enemy these tools of destruction."

Ellie

yellowwing
10-18-04, 07:59 PM
"This is how joint operations are supposed to work," said Haney. "You request permission, it gets approved and they send soldiers down to help with the mission. That's Army teamwork!"


Am I the only one that thinks that sounds really awkward and dangerous?