Marines mop up in Fallujah

[thedrifter]

Marines mop up in Fallujah

By BARRIE McKENNA
From Monday's Globe and Mail

Washington — The grim cleanup of Fallujah has begun after a bloody and destructive six-day U.S.-led assault that left much of the Iraqi city in ruins and cost the lives of as many as 1,200 insurgents and 38 Americans.

Witnesses who saw the city yesterday described a wasteland of gutted buildings, charred bodies and crushed cars after U.S. and Iraqi forces seized control and began hunting down the last pockets of resistance.

"The only good muj is a dead muj," U.S. Marine Gunnery Sergeant Christopher Garza told Reuters, using the slang term for mujahedeen (holy warriors) as his Humvee rolled past a bloated, burned body.

A street-by-street U.S. "cleansing operation" has uncovered torture chambers, hostage prisons and the body of an unidentified blond-haired woman with her legs and arms cut off and throat slit.

The disemboweled body was wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket on a street in Fallujah, marines said. The body could not be immediately identified, but two foreign women are known to be missing in Iraq: Margaret Hassan, 59, director of CARE international in Iraq, and Teresa Borcz Khalifa, 54, a Polish-born long-time resident of Iraq. The latter woman is known to have blond hair.

The fighting has left Fallujah without power, water, food or medical care. It is unclear how many of the city's 300,000 residents stayed after U.S. and Iraqi troops unleashed an air and artillery barrage after surrounding the city last week.

"It is probably going to be another four to five days of clearing house to house," said Colonel Mike Shupp, a top U.S. Marine officer. "There is not going to be a stone unturned in the city."

No help has reached civilians since the assault began a week ago. Yesterday, U.S. forces kept a Red Crescent aid convoy of seven trucks and ambulances waiting at the main hospital.

Even with the fighting winding down in the insurgent stronghold, violence has flared elsewhere in Iraq, with militants moving to new hot spots. U.S. military officials believe that al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi probably fled Fallujah before the assault began, taking many of his supporters with him.

Some of the worst violence has taken place in northern Mosul and in Ramadi, a city of 400,000 just 50 kilometres down the Euphrates River from Fallujah.

"Ramadi is really out of control," said Lieutenant-Colonel Justin Gubler, commander of the U.S. 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry. As many as 150 foreign fighters are in that city, he said.

In Mosul, rebels overran a police station yesterday and U.S. troops, backed by Iraqi security forces, were battling to retake it, according to a Pentagon spokesman.

In Baiji, U.S. helicopters fired missiles at insurgents, while U.S. forces, backed by tanks, moved into the city centre after clashing with rebels. A local doctor said seven people had been wounded.

Insurgents hit a police station in Muqdadiya, northeast of Baghdad, with mortar fire, killing one policeman, according to Iraqi police. Later, more than a dozen insurgents attacked the Polish embassy with machine guns, prompting embassy guards to return fire. No one was reported killed or injured.

Saturday, rebels attacked a military base near the capital with "indirect fire," killing one U.S. soldier and wounding three others, the U.S. military said.

Analysts have warned that the battle of Fallujah would not quell the violence in Iraq in the lead-up to elections planned for early next year, but top Iraqi government and U.S. military officials were already touting the battle as a key event.

Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who has vowed to crush the insurgency before elections in January, hailed the "clear-cut victory" and said the city is now clear of rebels.

U.S. military commanders were clearly pleased that the operation had gone more smoothly than a failed bid by 2,000 marines in April to take back the city from its insurgent defenders. This time, war planners sent six times more troops, who fought their way across the rebel city in less than a week — far more quickly than expected, according to the Marine general who drafted the ground attack.

"We had the green light this time and we went all the way," Major-General Richard Natonski told Associated Press.

The assault also proved to be among the bloodiest confrontations since the United States invaded Iraq last year. U.S. officials said more than 1,200 insurgents were killed, including Sunni Muslim rebels and Arab foreign fighters. As many as 200 were captured.

Lieutenant-General John Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said 38 American troops and six Iraqi soldiers also died in the assault. The number of injured U.S. troops was "up in the high 200s," he added. Iraqi government officials have insisted that no civilians were killed or wounded in the fighting, but several Fallujah residents have vigorously disputed this claim.

Also yesterday:

Kidnappers who had threatened to kill Mr. Allawi's cousin, the cousin's wife and their daughter-in-law if he did not call off the Fallujah offensive said they would release the two women, Al-Jazeera television reported.
One in six U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq is suffering from psychological trauma and the problem is likely to get worse, the Los Angeles Times reported.
With reports from Reuters, AFP and AP

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041114.wfall1115/BNStory/International/

Ellie

[thedrifter]

No word on trial of marines
By VICKI CAMPION
15nov04
MYSTERY surrounds the fate of two United States marines accused of attacking a Townsville student in February.

Lance Corporal Craig Matthew Meeks, 21, was charged with the attempted murder of university student Heath Twomey while Staff Sergeant Beryl Wilson Jr, 33, faced charges of assault occasioning bodily harm while armed.

A Townsville court was told the two attacked Twomey at Bullwinkles nightclub on February 1, striking him with a bottle and stabbing him in the neck with a knife.

The two were handed over to American authorities to face a US military court in June.

But despite repeated attempts late last week to contact the American Embassy - by the Townsville Bulletin and Attorney-General Philip Ruddock's office - for the latest on the trial, the embassy has failed to respond to inquiries on the issue.

A spokesman from Mr Ruddock's office said inquiries had been made on the status of the case.

"And we will continue to follow up those inquiries," the spokesman said.

The marines, who were granted Supreme Court bail in Townsville on February 6, were due to appear in the Townsville Magistrates Court on May 31 but failed to attend.

Defence solicitor Jo Richards, who represented both men in their absence, said the marines were in Japan at that time.

Magistrate David Glasgow was handed a letter from the Federal Attorney-General's Department, which said US authorities had requested they be granted jurisdiction to deal with the two marines. The Australian Government had consented to the request, the letter said.

Mr Glasgow then adjourned the matters to a date to be advised and allowed the marines' bail to lapse.

The US authorities were entitled to make the request for legal jurisdiction under Section 10 of Australia's Defence Visiting Forces Act 1963.

At the time, a spokeswoman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said he had to consider several factors before determining whether or not he should waive Australian jurisdiction in such matters.

Those included the wishes of the complainant, comparative penalties and trial costs for each jurisdiction and the lengths of the respective trial processes.

If the marines had been convicted of their charges in Townsville, Meeks faced a maximum penalty of life in jail and Wilson faced a maximum of 10 years' jail.

Townsville Department of Public Prosecutions chief Peter Smid said in June he had been led to believe the corresponding US charges would attract similar or harsher penalties.

Mr Smid said US authorities would bear all costs involved with a trial, including travel expenses for Mr Twomey and any witnesses.

In a June report of the marines' no-show at the Townsville Magistrates Court, northern regional crime co-ordinator Detective Inspector Warren Webber said Mr Twomey was consulted before a decision was made about whether or not to give jurisdiction to US authorities.

He said Mr Twomey agreed to have the matters heard before a US military court.

http://townsvillebulletin.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,11389082%255E14787,00.html

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines Sift Through Fallujah
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
November 15, 2004

Fallujah, Iraq - After nearly a week of fighting, the 3rd battalion, 5th Marines finally stumbled into Michigan on Sunday evening.

Michigan is the nickname the U.S. military has given to the main highway that bisects what is left of Fallujah. It marks the southernmost boundary of a rectangular area about 2 miles by 1 1/2 miles that this Marine unit was assigned to secure.

For political reasons, part of the force attacking the city drove from the north and swept south as quickly as possible. The assault on Fallujah has angered the country's Sunni Muslims, and the interim Iraqi government wants to declare victory here as quickly as possible.

But while the center of the American line pushed rapidly south, this Marine unit concentrated on three neighborhoods in the northwest and north-central parts of the city that were believed to be an insurgent stronghold. The Marines were given the nightmarish task of going from building to building to root out insurgents, disarm booby traps and find weapons caches.

When the exhausted unit finally made it to Michigan at 4 p.m. Sunday, the smell of success was a mixture of cordite and rotting bodies.

After the grind of gunbattles, aerial assaults and tank and artillery fire, the city resembles a Hollywood set. In the morning, it is turned on for battle, and at night, the streets, choked with rubble and dotted with decaying corpses, are eerily silent.

In some areas of the city, corpses lie on the street every 50 yards, rotting in the 85-degree heat.

U.S. Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski on Sunday put the toll of guerrillas killed in Fallujah at more than 1,200. There was no estimate of civilian casualties. A U.S. military statement said 38 U.S. troops had been killed and 275 wounded in the assault.


While this Marine unit has completed its objective, the city is still not secure. A battalion operations officer estimated that it will be at least two more days before the entire city can be considered under government control.

Military intelligence had said insurgents set up their headquarters somewhere in the three neighborhoods --- the Jolan, the souk and the park --- where the Marines were attacking. The only way to find them and flush them out was to search every building. Moving at a rate of about 600 yards every five hours, Marines had to work their way through the warren of streets.

In the Jolan district, the homes along the one-lane, dirt streets usually have a cinderblock or concrete wall that fronts the street. Between the wall and the house is a courtyard where the rebels would either rig booby traps or lie in wait to ambush the Marines. In effect, searching every home amounted to assaulting a bunker.

In many cases, before Marines entered an area, the homes would be attacked by artillery or planes dropping 500-pound bombs.

Next, a gunner with a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on a Humvee would begin his work. It takes about two minutes for a machine gun to either blow a hole in the wall or demolish the gate. With the courtyard exposed, the Marines would rush the building.

A typical street has about 20 houses, and the searches, punctuated with gunbattles, would begin at dawn and continue for 12 hours. At night, the soldiers would usually get five or six hours' sleep.

Sometimes, these assaults would go horribly awry. Three Marines were killed when, after entering a building, insurgents detonated explosives on the roof, sending the building crashing down. Some setbacks

Just hours before the Marines secured their area Sunday, a platoon ran into insurgents in a building a block south of Michigan. In that assault, a soldier was first shot then wounded by a grenade. His leg later had to be amputated.

American firepower also entombed civilians who hid in their homes during the fighting.

The 3rd Platoon of the 3/5 Kilo Company rescued an Iraqi woman Sunday who was buried under the rubble of her house, hit by U.S. bombs five days ago. Although the woman was bleeding and suffered second-degree burns over 30 percent of her body, Marine doctors said she was in stable condition.

She told the Marines that her husband and two sons had died under the rubble.

While medics were waiting for a vehicle to evacuate her, three of her neighbors rushed out to cheer the U.S. troops. The oldest of the three men, a 51-year-old shopkeeper who did not want to be identified, told the Marines he had been detained Tuesday by a roving group of gunmen who, when they heard him talking on his cellphone and accused him of collaborating with the Americans. The man said he was trying to contact relatives to tell them he was still alive.

The man, who said he stayed in Fallujah because he was afraid of looters, said the gunmen took him to another neighborhood home where a group of 15 fighters were resting. He spent the night tied up but, when U.S. airstrikes became so severe that the houses around them shook, the gunmen fled.

"I've been so scared here. I've been scared that they would return and cut my head off," the man said.

Others were not so lucky. In one street, soldiers found three people who apparently had been executed. A man and a woman died hugging one another, each killed by a shot to the head. Nearby a blond woman, who Marines said they believed was a Westerner, had been shot and mutilated.

Two foreign women were kidnapped last month --- Margaret Hassan, 59, the director of CARE International in Iraq, and Teresa Borcz Khalifa, 54, a Polish-born longtime resident of Iraq.

Elsewhere in Iraq:

- Militants attacked two police stations in Mosul, killing at least six Iraqi National Guards. One insurgent died. Saboteurs set fire to four oil wells in Khabbaza, 12 miles northwest of Kirkuk.

- Insurgents clashed with U.S. troops after blowing up a railroad overpass in the northern town of Beiji. At least six people were killed.

- More than a dozen insurgents attacked the Polish Embassy in Baghdad with automatic weapons, but no one was killed. After nightfall rockets or mortars struck central Baghdad, killing at least two Iraqis and a private security guard.

- Kidnappers claimed to have released two female relatives of Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, according to two pan-Arab satellite channels.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Military Matters: Call from Iraq doesn't always mean the worst

Mary Graff can't pin down the exact year. Maybe it was 1968, or maybe 1969. She was a teenager living in Richmond Heights, and her big brother - Bill Glosemeyer - was an Army captain serving in Vietnam.

One day, her brother got wounded by mortar shrapnel.

And how did the teenager and her family find out about the wound?

"We found out when we got some medals in the mail," says Graff. "My brother wasn't the best letter-writer."

This week, mortar shrapnel tore once again into Mary Graff's life.

At 7 a.m. Thursday, at her home in Webster Groves, she got a phone call from Fallujah, Iraq. On the line was a Marine company commander informing Graff that her son - Sgt. Nick Graff, 25 - had been hit in the right side by mortar shrapnel and was being evacuated.

That morning's Post-Dispatch included a picture of a wounded Marine being loaded aboard a helicopter in Iraq. As you might imagine, Mary Graff was frantic. She called the paper and got patched through to me.

She wanted to know whether the Marine in the photo was her son. I couldn't tell her; Associated Press photos rarely identify wounded military people.

I told her I'd call the public affairs people at Marine Corps headquarters in the Pentagon to find out what I could. But because of the Veterans Day holiday, my calls went unanswered - and Mary Graff and her husband, Russ, were left to stew.

She wanted to know just how bad her boy's wound was. Should she get ready for the worst? The captain on the phone from Fallujah had said her son was going to be OK. But she fretted that the captain might have been trying to soften some hard news.

Early Friday morning, the public affairs people at Marine Corps headquarters reported for duty. Among them was Gunnery Sgt. Kristine Scarber, who had good news for Mary Graff.

Asked how the Marine Corps went about notifying the families of wounded Marines, Scarber said, "It depends on the severity of the wound. If it's severe enough that the family might want to go to the bedside, the Marines notify the family in person."

And a less severe wound?

Scarber said, "Somebody within the command will call the family from the scene" - just as that captain in Fallujah had called Mary Graff.

Scarber is too young to know offhand how things worked in the old days, other than to note that word had gone to the families by way of telegrams. Often, the telegram would arrive weeks after the shrapnel.

Today, Scarber said, the time lag in notification depends on the flow of the battlefield. "If somebody gets wounded in Fallujah," she said, "the notification may not be so quick as it would be with an isolated casualty." Which makes sense. Marines in Fallujah are awfully busy these days.

Mary Graff is unsure exactly when her son got hit. But 7 a.m. in Webster Groves would be late afternoon in Iraq, when a company commander might finally find time for phone calls. So it's possible she got the notification just a few hours after her son was wounded. Such is the miracle of the satellite telephone.

The Pentagon's Scarber said, "In the Marines, we take care of our own - and we consider a Marine's family to be 'our own.' "

Since Sgt. Graff joined the Marines in 1997, the word "family" has grown to include his wife - the former Katie Brock of Chattanooga, Tenn. - and their daughter and son, Madison, 5, and Jacob, 2.

Scarber said the next Marine Corps call to that family might well come from Sgt. Graff himself.

Meanwhile, Mary Graff is relieved beyond words to know that the phone call from Fallujah really was good news - or at least was the best version of bad news. Her reaction: "Thank God."


Reporter Harry Levins
E-mail: hlevins@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8144

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/0/0F38F10DA8E8F0B386256F4B00125017?OpenDocument&Headline=Military+Matters%3A+Call+from+Iraq+doesn' t+always+mean+the+wor

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines reopen Fallujah bridge where Iraqi mob hung burned American contractors
Associated Press

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. Marines on Sunday reopened the Fallujah bridge where Iraqis strung up the charred bodies of two American contractors in March, with officers calling the span's clearing for traffic a symbolic victory in the fight against Iraq's insurgents.


The March 31 slaying of four Blackwater Security Consulting employees, two of whose bodies were burned and hung from the red trestle, touched off a Marine assault in April. That fight was halted but U.S. forces attacked again this week, retaking Fallujah and its now-notorious bridge from rebels.



"This is a big event for us. It's where they hung the Blackwater consultants, which was some of the catalyst for the April uprising," said Maj. Todd Des Grosseilliers, of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines.


"It's symbolic, because the insurgents closed the bridge and we reopened it," he said before Marines rolled away a coil of concertina wire and crossed the span over the Euphrates River on foot.


Two Iraqi bodies lay near the bridge, dead in the assault that began Monday and saw U.S. and Iraqi forces pushing southward through Fallujah.


Military traffic from both banks will use the bridge, which leads into the heart of Fallujah, Fallujah 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad. The span was closed during the fight.


http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/11/14/build/world/35-fallujah-bridge.inc

Ellie

[thedrifter]

U.S. Marines in Fallujah finding bomb-making labs, hostages, beheading chambers

11-14) 20:40 PST FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) --

U.S. Marines have found beheading chambers, bomb-making factories and even one Iraqi hostage as they swept through Fallujah -- turning up hard evidence of the city's role in the insurgent campaign to drive American forces from Iraq.

Marines on Sunday showed off what they called a bomb-making factory, where insurgents prepared roadside explosives and car bombs that have killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops.

Wires, cell phones, Motorola handheld radios and a Plastic foam box packed with C4 plastic explosives sat in the dark building down an alley, along with three balaclava-style masks reading: "There is only one god, Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger."

"It's all significant because this is not the kind of stuff an average household has," said Lt. Kevin Kimner, 25, of Cincinnati assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. "This is better than Radio Shack."

So far U.S. troops have only found two hostages, one Iraqi and one Syrian. Marines last week found the Iraqi in a room with a black banner bearing the logo of one of Iraq's extremist groups. He was chained to the wall, shackled hand and foot in front of a video camera. The floor was covered with blood.

The rescued Syrian was the driver for two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, missing since August. The journalists have not been found, but France maintains they are still alive.

A Marine officer said he found signs that at least one foreign hostage was beheaded in that room. The Marine, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not give details.

The Iraqi hostage, who had been beaten on the back with steel cables, said his tormentors were Syrian and that he thought he was in Syria until the Marines found him, the Marine said. Other militants came and went, but "The Syrians were always in charge," the Marine said.

The hostage was in a room -- inside a compound that also had AK-47 rifles, improvised bombs, fake identification cards and shoulder-fired missiles that could down an airliner. Beneath it were tunnels running under the northern Jolan neighborhood.

Marines said weapons depots were strategically placed throughout Jolan. Insurgents marked many of the caches with a piece of brick or rock, suspended from the buildings by a piece of string or wire.

U.S. officials hope that by retaking Fallujah they can deprive the rebels of an important headquarters and boost security in Iraq ahead of elections scheduled for January.

Among the rebels' most-fearsome weapons have been the car bombs and roadside explosives that have targeted military convoys but also churches and other areas where civilians gather.

On Sunday, a hollowed-out plastic foam container about the size of two shoe boxes lay in the bomb lab, packed with plastic explosives and wires. The plastic foam box was covered in cloth to disguise it as an innocuous package.

Scattered on the ground nearby -- cell phones, walkie-talkies, Motorola handheld radios -- all used as detonators lay tangled in coils of wire. There was a computer without a hard drive and a box full of professional explosives-triggering.

"We've seen better," Kimner said of the detonators. "But they're reliable and they do the job right."

When Marines uncovered the lab in a Saturday sweep, they also found Islamic Jihadist writings. A complete reading of the Koran on cassette tape lay in a box. Among the clutter where two wills, addressed to friends and family in Algeria.

"I will join my friends in heaven," the will read. "Don't cry for me. Celebrate my death."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/11/14/international1722EST0522.DTL

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marine Pictured In Iconic Photo Unfazed
Associated Press
November 15, 2004

PIKEVILLE, Ky. - An eastern Kentucky Marine whose battle-grimed face has quickly become a symbol of the fighting in the Iraqi city of Fallujah says he doesn't understand what all the fuss is about.

But his mother is thrilled. Maxie Webber, of Robinson Creek in eastern Kentucky, said the close-up of Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller let her know that her son was OK.

Webber said she first saw it Wednesday on CBS.

"I just sat here and I thought, that's my son," Webber said. "I couldn't believe it."

The photograph, taken by a Los Angeles Times photographer and transmitted by The Associated Press, has been printed in more than 100 newspapers and shown on network television.

Miller, 20, is shown with smudged camouflage paint and a bloody scratch on his nose, a cigarette drooping from the side of his mouth. He was exhausted and grimy after more than 12 hours of nonstop fighting.

Miller, a graduate of Shelby Valley High School, is serving with Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, scene of fierce battles over the past week.

He didn't know about the photo and his spreading fame until two Los Angeles Times staffers traveling with his unit told him about it.

"I was just smokin' a cigarette and someone takes my picture and it all blows up," Miller told them Friday.




The picture, which appeared in the Times on Wednesday, was taken on the afternoon after Charlie Company entered Fallujah under intense hostile fire.

Miller and his fellow platoon members had spent the day engaged in practically nonstop firefights, fending off snipers and attackers, and hadn't slept in more than 24 hours.

"It was kind of crazy out here at first," Miller says. "No one really knew what to expect. They told us about it all the time, but no one knows for sure until you get here."

He grew up in rural Jonancy, named after his great-great-great grandparents Joe and Nancy Miller, the first settlers in the area. His father, James Miller, is a mechanic and farmer, and the young Miller grew up working crops of potatoes, corn and green beans. His mother is a nurse.

His mother said she stays home as much as possible in case he calls.

"I don't want to miss his call because you never know if that call will be the last one," Webber said.

She said she bought an answering machine in case Miller, the oldest of her three sons, calls while she's out. She has one message on the machine from Aug. 1.

"And when I get lonely, and it's been a few days, I play that tape," Webber said.

Webber said her son's decision to join the Marines has changed the way she thinks about America.

"Until my son went into the Marines, I never really realized what that flag stood for - but now I do," she said.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

24th MEU rolls up suspects on busy Marine Corps birthday in Babil province
Submitted by: 24th MEU
Story by Sgt. Zachary A. Bathon

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq (Nov. 10, 2004) -- Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit's newly formed Operations Platoon nabbed two suspected insurgents during a cordon-and-search mission in south-central Iraq Nov. 10, as the MEU celebrated the Marine Corps birthday by capturing 41 militants and killing a number of others.

The two suspects, wanted in connection with attacks against coalition forces, were detained as the platoon was investigating a known point of origin for mortar attacks.

"We were given the mission to check out the area when we stopped a vehicle and asked the driver his name," said Staff Sgt. Robert M. Taylor, 30, a Charlottesville, Va., native and squad leader for Operations Platoon. "The guy was on our list of suspects, so we asked if we could look in his house. We went to his house and searched it, then detained the guy. He told us where one of the other guys we were looking for lived ... and showed us where his house was."

The Marines proceeded to his house, conducted a search, and detained the individual. Both men were held for questioning.

The mission proved to be a success for the newly formed platoon, comprised of Marines from the command element and representing military occupational specialties ranging from administrative clerks to motor transport mechanics. The platoon has been busy making its presence felt in the area, patrolling, looking for weapons caches and insurgents, establishing hasty vehicle checkpoints, and conducting cordon-and-search missions.

The duties have allowed the Marines of the MEU's headquarters to get out and do the job of a rifleman.

"So far we have been doing counter-mortar patrol, ambushes, vehicle checkpoints and some public-relations work," said Taylor. "We have just been going out and talking to the locals and letting them know we are here to help."

Some of the Marines in the platoon expressed their enthusiasm about getting off the base to do their part.

"It's great. It is awesome," said Lance Cpl. Nikolaus Gugelman, 21, a Seattle native and supply warehouseman. "We get to go out and help these people instead of just staying on the FOB day in and day out. I think the Iraqis actually feel safer with us out there."

The platoon is also starting to come together as a team.

"So far we have been performing pretty well," said Lance Cpl. David I. Mobley, 21, a Montgomery, Ala., native and administrative clerk.

"We know the basics," added Gugelman. "We listen to each other and pay attention if someone says something that we need to do. We are improving as a team. We are pulling together and doing what we need to do in time of war."

Taylor said he was very pleased with his Marines' performance so far.

"They have been doing an outstanding job," said Taylor. "They are working outside of the normal jobs day in and day out. They have taken to being grunts real well."

The success of the Operations Platoon, came on a highly productive day for the MEU and Iraqi security forces south of Baghdad.

In other action:

* Marines from the MEU's Reconnaissance and Surveillance Platoon, patrolling in vehicles near Haswah, were engaged with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. The Marines dismounted, returned fire and swept the area, capturing one militant and killing several others. They also seized a number of machine guns and RPG's as well as 800 rounds of machine-gun ammunition.

* Iraqi national guardsmen assisting with the search found 11 anti-Iraqi forces hiding in a house with a number of recently fired weapons.

* The same Marines came under attack later by small-arms fire and an improvised explosive device near Iskandariyah. The Marines dismounted again, spotted the IED triggerman and killed him.

* Marines from Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines - the MEU's ground combat element - picked up five men toting AK-47 rifles north of Iskandariyah.

* Marines from the BLT's Charlie Company, manning a patrol base near Haswah, received small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The Marines returned fire, killing one militant and wounding another. Iraqi police assisting in the search captured three additional AIF, while Marines from the BLT's Combined Anti-Armor Team and the MEU's Reconnaissance and Surveillance Platoon captured two more men believed to be involved in laying an IED earlier in the day.

* Near Musayyib, Iraqi Specialized Special Forces, backed by Marines from Bravo Company's 3rd Platoon, captured eight insurgents, including a suspected financier of anti-Iraqi activity.

* Marines from Bravo Company's 2nd Platoon, patrolling west of Musayyib, came upon a vehicle stopped along the side of a road near several old craters left by exploded IED's. The vehicle drove away as the Marines approached. As the Marines gave chase, they took small-arms fire from the fleeing car. The Marines returned fire, killing one individual.

* Marines from Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines, patrolling in vehicles in the MEU's northern sector, captured five armed militants who had established an illegal vehicle checkpoint near Yusufiyah.

* Marines from MEU Service Support Group 24 - the MEU's combat service support element - engaged six insurgents north of Yusufiyah who had fired at their convoy with small arms and RPGs. After suppressing the gunman, the convoy rolled on.

* Marines from 2/24's Echo Company, patrolling near Mahmudiyah, stopped a vehicle bearing three military-aged males. The men were carrying $10,000 in U.S. currency but no identification. They were detained.

* Finally, BLT snipers operating north of Iskandariyah observed two men attempting to place an IED near a burned-out vehicle. The Marines engaged the men, killing one and capturing the other.

Four Marines were wounded in action throughout the day, but none seriously.

Iraqi security forces and Marines continue to cast a wide net across northern Babil province in a relentless campaign to kill or capture AIF and disrupt their activity. Since the MEU arrived in July, the combined forces have rounded up nearly 650 insurgents and uncovered some 100 weapons and ammunition stockpiles.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

2 Marines From Woodbridge, Baltimore Area Killed in Iraq

By Martin Weil and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 15, 2004; Page A18

On Nov. 3, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Brian A. Medina talked by phone from Iraq to his father, Gregory, in Virginia, telling him that up to then, his platoon had suffered no casualties.

But on Friday, Gregory Medina said, he had a bad feeling, and just before he went to sleep that night came the knock on the door at his home in the Woodbridge area.

Cpl. Medina, 20, who had been in Iraq since September, had been killed that day in Al Anbar province. He was the second Marine from the Washington region to die there that day. Also killed, according to the Pentagon, was Lance Cpl. David M. Branning, 21, who listed Cockeysville, Md., as his home of record.

Both were in the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment, which is part of the 3rd Marine Division. The division is in the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force, which is stationed at the Marine Corps Base in Hawaii.

Al Anbar province includes Fallujah, where Marines and Army troops launched a major assault a week ago aimed at driving out insurgents who have made a stronghold there.

At least 38 members of the U.S. military and six Iraqi soldiers have died since the assault began. Three of the Americans were noncombat fatalities. The number of wounded Americans was reported yesterday at 275.

Gregory Medina, who retired after a career as a Navy Seabee, said he believed that his son, a graduate of Gar-Field Senior High School, joined the Marines in 2001 "because of 9/11," the terror attacks launched by Osama bin Laden's network.

But many members of his family either have served or are serving in the military, and Gregory Medina suspected that his oldest son always wanted to join up.

"He adapted very well to the Marine Corps," Gregory Medina said. "They taught him a lot, and he grew up a lot." There was a good chance, he said, that his son would have made it a career.

Brian Medina's mother, Lolita Converse, lives in Newport News, Va., with one of Brian's two sisters. He also had two brothers.

"We all support the Marines," the father said. "We are praying for the men."

In his calls home, Brian Medina said the Marines "belong there. There's nobody there who wants to go home," Gregory Medina told the Potomac News.

Relatives of Branning's described him as a graduate of Baltimore County's Dulaney High School who loved cooking and drawing and was led to join the Marines at least in part by his curiosity, according to the Associated Press.

"He wanted to see things, to find out about the world beyond Baltimore," according to his stepmother, Tia Steele, the Associated Press said.

"We're very sad," Megan Branning, a cousin of Branning's, told the Associated Press yesterday. "The war in Iraq has hit close to home in our family."

David L. Branning of Annapolis, Branning's second cousin, told the Associated Press that he spoke to the Marine's father, Daniel Branning, this weekend. Two Marines had visited him at his home in Albuquerque to give him the news.

"When you lose your 21-year-old son, your only son, I don't think he expected that to happen," David L. Branning said. "So when I talked to him, he was pretty devastated."

The family hopes to hold a memorial for Branning in Maryland early next month, he said.

Ellie

[Sgt Sostand]

Hell they should have taken Fallujah the first time they gave those guys enuff time to relocate

[thedrifter]

U.S. Marines: Fallujah 'Liberated'
Last Update: 11/14/2004 4:58:49 PM


United Press International

The U.S. military says Fallujah has been liberated, broadcast sources reported Sunday.

U.S. Marines spread through the deserted city Sunday, kicking down doors in a risky house-to-house search for insurgents that, a Marine general said, "are willing to fight to the death."

"While some resistance remains, the targets of the U.S.-Iraqi military operation have been overpowered in the weeklong assault," Marine Lt. Gen. John Sattler said.

"As of late last night, we have been in all parts of the city," Sattler told reporters. "We have liberated the city of Fallujah. The enemy is broken. American soldiers took sporadic gunfire from insurgents," he said.

Sattler was with the U.S. Central Command chief, Army Gen. John Abizaid, who spoke to Marines and soldiers fighting the battle and told reporters they had been very effective in their efforts.

The American troop death toll in the assault on Fallujah rose to 31 Sunday, with nearly 300 coalition fighters wounded, Sattler said.

Six Iraqi troops died in the assault and an estimated 2,000 insurgents also have been killed, he said.

U.S. Air Force planes dropped four 2,000-pound bombs overnight and called in C-130 air strikes early Sunday, firing more than 100 rounds at an underground compound that stocked medical and other supplies for the insurgents.

http://www.wpmi.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=EB8B5519-D1E5-49BE-939C-676525AC7CB7

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Nine Killed in Fierce Baqouba Fighting

By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Fierce battles between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi forces killed at least nine people Monday in Baqouba — the latest in a wave of clashes that has swept Iraq (news - web sites)'s Sunni Muslim heartland even as American forces move against the last remaining pockets of resistance in Fallujah.


A Red Cross spokesman said that a relief convoy of ambulances and supplies trying to enter Fallujah was turned back by Iraqi authorities or U.S. Marines on Monday. The Red Crescent and Red Cross have been unable to gain access to people inside Fallujah during more than a week of fighting.


Elsewhere, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's office confirmed that two of his female relatives who were kidnapped last week have been released. Allawi's cousin, Ghazi Allawi, 75, his cousin's wife and his cousin's pregnant daughter-in-law were abducted at gunpoint last Tuesday in western Baghdad's Yarmouk neighborhood.


"Yes, yes, the two women were released yesterday," said an Allawi spokesman who declined to be named. There was no word on the cousin, Ghazi Allawi.


On Sunday, U.S. Marines found the mutilated body of a Western woman as they searched for militants still holding out in Fallujah. The woman could not be immediately identified, but a British aide worker and a Pole are the only Western women known to have been taken hostage.


In Baqouba, U.S. officials said the trouble started when insurgents attacked 1st Infantry Division soldiers with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire near a traffic circle and police station.


During the fighting, U.S. troops started getting fire from a mosque, the U.S. military said. Iraqi security stormed the mosque and found rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds and other weapons and ammunition, the statement said.


The fighting took place in Baqouba and neighboring town of Buhriz, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. American aircraft dropped two 500 pound bombs on an insurgent position.


Four 1st Infantry Division soldiers were wounded, although two of them returned to duty, the military said. Nine Iraqis, including one attacker, a policeman and seven civilians, were killed and 11 Iraqis were injured in the fighting, according to Mohammed Zayad of the Baqouba hospital.


The week-old offensive in Fallujah, the city that came to symbolize resistance to the U.S.-led occupation, has left at least 38 American troops and six Iraqi soldiers dead. The number of U.S. troops wounded is now 275, though more than 60 have returned to duty. U.S. officials estimated more than 1,200 insurgents have been killed.


On Monday, U.S. forces resumed heavy airstrikes and artillery fire, with warplanes making between 20-30 bombing sorties in Fallujah and surrounding areas. U.S. ground forces were trying to corner the remaining resistance in the city.


American forces had attacked a bunker complex Sunday in the city's south where they discovered a network of steel-reinforced tunnels and underground bunkers. The tunnels connected a ring of facilities filled with weapons, an anti-aircraft artillery gun, bunk beds and a truck, according to a statement from the U.S. military.


Marines also found the disemboweled body of a Western woman wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket on a street in Fallujah. Two foreign women _Margaret Hassan, 59, director of CARE international in Iraq, and Teresa Borcz Khalifa, 54, a Polish-born longtime resident of Iraq — were abducted last month but the body could not be identified without further tests.


Civilians seeking medical care were told through loudspeakers and leaflets to contact U.S. troops. In Geneva, the Baghdad spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Ahmed Rawi, said Monday an Iraqi Red Crescent convoy of four ambulances and four trucks carrying supplies reached Fallujah General Hospital on the city's outskirts, but was unable to go further.


The hospital itself was well-supplied because no patients or wounded people have been able to reach it from the embattled city, Rawi said.


"Regretfully, there was no patient in sight," he said.


In Baghdad, the Iraqi Red Crescent, the partner organization of the Red Cross, said U.S. forces and the Iraqi government prevented the aid convoy from crossing the Euphrates River into the main part of the city and told it to leave the hospital area as well.





Rawi told The Associated Press by telephone that no reason was given for the refusal, but that the convoy then went to the south in hopes of entering nearby Amiriyah al-Fallujah, where there are camps for displaced residents who have fled the fighting.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the Marine general who designed the ground attack on Fallujah said it had gone far more quickly than expected and that troops had fought their way across the city in just six days.

Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski on Sunday described the ground war as a "flawless execution of the plan we drew up. We are actually ahead of schedule."

As fighting in Fallujah neared its conclusion, insurgent attacks escalated elsewhere in Sunni Muslim areas of Iraq.

Clashes between gunmen and Iraqi security forces early Monday south of Baghdad killed seven Iraqi police and national guardsmen and injured five others, police said.

Gunmen carried out near-simultaneous attacks on a police station and an Iraqi National Guard headquarters in Suwayrah, about 25 miles south of Baghdad, police said. Two policemen and five National Guardsmen were killed.

The dead included Maj. Hadi Refeidi, the director of the Suwayrah police station.

Before the clashes, National Guardsmen opened fire at a boobytrapped car approaching their headquarters, killing the driver. The car was loaded with 880 pounds of TNT.

In the insurgent-heavy city of Ramadi, 70 miles west of the capital, heavy fighting erupted on Monday between militants and U.S. forces, residents said.

Sunni clerics at several mosques called on residents to kick out bands of armed men who have come from outside the city, claiming that the clashes inside Ramada are having a negative impact on the economic situation of citizens.

North of Ramadi, a U.S. convoy came under attack near the town of Baghdadi, with one Humvee destroyed, according to a Baghdadi police Lt. Mohammed Abdel Karim. There was no confirmation from the U.S. military about the incident.

In Mosul, where an uprising broke out last week in support of the Fallujah defenders, militants raided two police stations Sunday, killing at least six Iraqi National Guards and wounding three others. One insurgent was killed and three others were wounded before Iraqi security forces regained control of both stations, witnesses said.

Insurgents also set fire to the governor's house, destroying it and damaging his car in northern Mosul. Governor Duraid Kashmoula also said the curfew will continue to be imposed on the city from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. in the morning.

A gunbattle erupted Sunday between militants and U.S. troops in the main market in the northern town of Beiji, killing at least six people and wounding 20 others, according to witnesses.

___

Associated Press reporters Edward Harris in Fallujah and Robert H. Reid, Sameer N. Yacoub, Mariam Fam, Sabah Jerges, Katarina Kratovac and Maggie Michael in Baghdad contributed to this report.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Holiday Greetings for Marines Via Video

Reported by Kristina De Leon

NOVEMBER 13, 2004 - Six month old Emily Gudino is saying hello for the camera to her father whose on his second tour in Iraq.

While she is too young to realize her father is fighting the war in Iraq, her mother and other families say the troops could use a special holiday message just for them.

Emily’s mother Jessica says it's been hard, but she takes it day by day keeping him in her prayers and asking God for strength.

"It's hard playing both a mother and father, but I do it for my daughter and my husband."

"This is our first Christmas as a married couple," said another soldier’s wife, Lisa Hernandez.

She says it's going to be lonely because she and her husband just got married in January.

"We were high school sweethearts and have been together for 11-years."

Lisa, along with hundreds of others waited for hours to record a video message for their loved ones serving with the U.S. Marine Corps 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment.

One by one families representing the Marines got up before a KGBT 4 camera to tell their sons, fathers, brothers how much they're missed.

Many offered birthday greetings, others showed off babies that were only weeks old when the men were deployed to the Middle East.

Some families decorated posters with glitter, another family had special t-shirts made for the occasion.

While some families passed along their greetings in Spanish, one family offered a prayer for their son and all the other Marines.

Another father played "Silent Night" on his accordion - a hobby and passion he shares with his son.

"The message were so heartfelt and emotional," says Staff Sergeant John Saenz.

The relatives of these Valley residents are usually in charge of the annual U.S. Marine Corps and KGBT 4 Toys 4 Tots campaign. However this year the Marines are overseas and their families couldn't be more proud.

In the coming days the videotaped greetings will be sent to the Marines in Iraq.

Considering the mail takes at least two weeks to arrive in the Middle East, Staff Sgt. Saenz is hopeful the messages will arrive long before Christmas.

Saenz says there is no definitive date for the Marines return, but he's hoping they'll be back in the Valley by spring.

If you would like to help with the Toys 4 Tots campaign, you can call 956.425.9643 or 956.366.4421.


http://www.team4news.com/Global/story.asp?S=2562729&nav=0w0vT6fA

Ellie

[Sgt Morales, AM]

PHOTO ESSAY: Marines patrol Fallujah streets
Submitted by: 1st Marine Division
Story Identification #: 200411139140
Story by Sgt. Luis R. Agostini



FALLUJAH, Iraq (Nov. 13, 2004) -- Despite the heavy support from Marine Corps aircraft, artillery and tanks, Marines with Company I, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, are finding door charges, sledgehammers and mule kicks to be some of the most effective weapons when gaining entry into buildings in Fallujah, Iraq.

Marines explore every option available to maneuver through the narrow, uncertain streets of Fallujah. Whether it's a lance corporal's leaping kick through a steel door, or an entire squad of Marines jumping rooftops with more than 100 pounds of gear on their backs, the fearless Marines stop at nothing to wipe out the insurgency that has overrun Fallujah.

Marines explore every option available to maneuver through the narrow, uncertain streets of Fallujah. Whether it's a lance corporal's leaping kick through a steel door, or an entire squad of Marines jumping rooftops with more than 100 pounds of gear on their backs, the fearless Marines stop at nothing to wipe out the insurgency that has overrun Fallujah.

Their persistence in the meticulous clearing of Fallujah houses and buildings has delivered captured enemy combatants, weapons caches and valuable information on the Fallujah insurgents, many of whom have fled the dangerous city.

Operating in urban environments like Fallujah are some of the most dangerous military operations that can be conducted. The Marines have come across apartments laced with improvised explosive devices. The also received AK-47 and rocket-propelled grenade fire from mosques, cemeteries and overrun apartment complexes.


:marine: Good to go Marines!!!

Sgt. Morales

[thedrifter]

Internet café computers at bases in Iraq to be updated
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Juliana Gittler, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Sunday, November 14, 2004

LOGISTICAL SUPPORT AREA ANACONDA, Iraq - In response to reports of unauthorized downloads and the introduction of viruses to Morale, Welfare and Recreation computers in Iraq, officials in charge of Internet cafés on U.S. bases here have changed the way some will function.

The Space and Naval Warfare Command in Europe, which supports 178 Internet cafes in Iraq, is also upgrading its service to give users better service and lower-cost, voice-over-Internet calls, according to the command.

SPAWAR is cloning Internet café computers across the country, making them identical. In the process, the technicians will also limit access to unauthorized sites, and change the way some computers download and upload data.

Users will be required to use memory sticks and other mini-drives through the USB port to upload and download data.

"This is to prevent unwanted materials [from] being inadvertently stored on a machine, which may affect its function," Klaus Krane, project group team leader for SPAWAR Europe, wrote in an e-mail.

Some locations continue to allow downloads, such as photos, but users must erase them immediately.

Next month, SPAWAR will launch a new system across Iraq that will improve bandwidth and service to MWR computers.

"Due to the high customer usage and SPAWAR's desire to improve system performance, we developed a new solution which will increase the bandwidth and as a result will greatly improve system performance, increase Internet access speed and improve quality of phone calls," Krane wrote.

The new system will also reduce costs to the military.

Although all locations should still allow downloads, soldiers in at least one location have had trouble doing so, according to a letter to Stars and Stripes. SPAWAR told the soldier in question that he should still be able to download using the USB ports once the new system is in place.

Troops currently using voice-over-Internet telephones will be able to transfer or refund their unused minutes.

The new service, expected to be in place in the next several weeks, will have a 20 percent lower per-minute cost, Krane said.

SPAWAR supports Internet cafés with computers, voice-over-Internet phones and Web cams. Commands at each location determine the total number of computers and Internet center rules, Krane said.

Using the computers

If instructions for uploads and downloads using a USB port are not posted in Internet cafés, users can contact the Space and Naval Warfare Command support office in Iraq at DNVT 302-550-0746 or commercial 240-336-0236 for help.

Cafés using the old service will reach the following site after logging on: www.cjtf7-mwr.net. The site describes the new system and explains how to use remaining prepaid phone account minutes.

Cafés that have made the transition will be set to the following Web site, which offers more information: http://oif.spawareurope.net/


Ellie

[thedrifter]

A Doctor Is Haunted by Those He Couldn't Save
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Alissa J. Rubin
LA Times Staff Writer
November 15, 2004

BAGHDAD - Dr. Ahmed Ghanim's nightmarish week began with a phone call in the operating room of a makeshift medical center in downtown Fallouja.

On the line was the manager of the city's General Hospital. Iraqi national guardsmen and U.S. Marines, the manager said, had entered the hospital, handcuffed the doctors and were forcing the patients out to the parking lot.

The guardsmen "stole the mobile phones, the hospital safe where the money is kept and damaged the ambulances and cars," said Ghanim, an orthopedic surgeon who normally works at the General Hospital. "The Americans were more sympathetic with the hospital staff and … untied the doctors and allowed them to go outside with the patients."

But the worst was yet to come. In the coming days, Ghanim would narrowly escape a bombing, then run through his city's battle-torn streets. He would walk hungry and scared for miles, carrying with him memories of those he could not save.

"What happened in Fallouja in April was a walk in the park compared to this time," Ghanim said, referring to the spring siege of the city by Marines, an offensive that was called off after five days amid reports of heavy civilian casualties.

The latest fight for Fallouja began Nov. 7. The hospital, the city's main medical facility, was seized that night by U.S. and Iraqi troops. Commanders said it was taken over to ensure that there was a medical treatment facility available to civilians and to make sure that insurgents could not exaggerate casualties.

As fighting has raged over the last week, few civilian accounts of the battle have been available. There have been only scattered reports on casualties. But as combat eased Sunday, Ghanim and other survivors emerged and began to tell of the carnage.

"We were kicked out by the ING [Iraqi national guard]; even the Americans weren't as harsh as them," said Farhan Khalaf, 58, who had been at Fallouja General Hospital when it was seized. On Sunday, he was in Baghdad's Numan Hospital, caring for his injured daughter who had been transferred to the capital for treatment. She was injured by U.S. shelling, Khalaf said.

"They were roughing up patients and tying up the doctors, hitting them in some instances," he said. "They stole whatever valuables they could get their hands on, including money and cellphones. This is unacceptable. How could they do this against their own people?"

After the troops entered the facility, the manager told Ghanim that he had told a U.S. general the location of the downtown makeshift medical center. The general reportedly pledged that Ghanim's center would not be bombed on two conditions: No one with a gun could be in the building, and no groups could gather near the doors.

"Of course that was impossible because people came in groups to bring in their injured family and friends," Ghanim said.

Monday came and went. On Tuesday, the bombing came closer to the city center.

"I was doing amputations for many patients. But I am an orthopedic surgeon. If a patient came to me with an abdominal injury, I could do nothing," he said, eyes cast down, close to tears. "We would bring the patient in and we would have to let him die."

Electricity was cut off to the city. There was no water, no food, no fluids for the patients, Ghanim said. But the patients just kept coming.

"We were treating everyone. There were women, children, mujaheds. I don't ask someone if they are a fighter before I treat them. I just take care of them," he said.

Late Tuesday, a bomb struck one side of the makeshift medical center. Ghanim ran out.

A second bomb hit, crashing through the roof and destroying most of the facility. Ghanim believes it killed at least two of the young resident doctors working there and most of the patients.

"At that moment I wished to die," he said. "It was a catastrophe."

Afterward, he said, he half-ran, half-wandered through Fallouja, dodging explosions that seemed to be everywhere. He took shelter in an empty house and did not move.

"Time stopped. I don't know how long I was there," he said. "The tanks hit anything that moved.

"I saw the injured people on the street, covered in blood, staggering, screaming, shouting, 'Help me! Help me!' but we could not get out and help them because we would be killed."

At one point, he saw a wounded cousin in the street. "I could not do anything for him, I could not move," Ghanim said. "He died. There was no mercy."

During a lull in the bombing, the doctor decided to try to leave Fallouja. As he made his way through the rubble-filled streets, some fighters, native Falloujans like him, recognized the surgeon. They showed him a way out. He walked with a companion - an anesthetist - along the Euphrates River heading north.

First they walked to Saglawiya, a nearby village, he said, then more than 12 miles to the next village. There, a car picked them up and drove them about three miles. They resumed walking, occasionally getting a lift.

It took them 36 hours, mostly on foot, to make it the more than 30 miles to Baghdad. They didn't sleep, and ate only a few dates and a packet of biscuits.

"Wherever we were, we expected to be killed. There was no safe area at all," said Ghanim, who arrived in Baghdad on Saturday. "There were helicopters, tanks and troops wandering through all these areas."

On Sunday, as Ghanim recounted the week that was, he was clearly haunted by what might have been.

"I think if the Americans let us treat the injured, even in the streets," he said, "we could have saved hundreds."


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Eyewitness: Falluja battle scars
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BBC News
Nov. 15, 2004

American forces say they are still fighting small pockets of insurgents in the city of Falluja.

Our correspondent, Paul Wood, is with American marines in the city. He gave the following interview to BBC Radio 4's Today programme:

If you look outside of my window now, you can see a deserted street with about five bodies on it.

They still have their weapons with them - [you can hear] a little bit of what they call "suppressing fire" from the marines, because occasionally people are still circling around.

These are bodies of insurgents who tried to attack the base over the last couple of days.

These bodies still have their weapons with them, because the marines think it's just too risky to go out a couple of hundred metres further from this base to take the weapons away.

The consequence of this, for the ordinary people of Falluja, is that for four days now there have been bodies lying in the streets.

It is starting to become a serious health risk.

I spoke to an officer who had been a little way out from the base and he said that cats and dogs are now starting to eat these bodies.

In these last hours and days of the fighting, it is more frantic, it is more intense

It is a quite horrific picture which I'm drawing but that is what awaits the people of Falluja when they come back.

Q: What resistance is there left? To what extent do the Americans now control the city?

They do pretty much control it, but there is still intense fighting going on.

Now remember that on Sunday, the Iraqi government declared mission accomplished.

Well, we're not quite there yet.

There are still injured coming into this base, yet you might hear occasionally at this base thunderous explosions - those are mortars firing volleys in support of the mission of the rest of this unit, which is now right in the south of the city.

The attack, to quote one officer this morning, "is being pressed very hard in the south of the city".

But the character of the fighting has changed.

It is no longer through extremely dense narrow streets and alleyways.

I went out with the marines doing a little bit of that on Friday and it was absolutely horrific. We took casualties on just 15 minutes into that fighting. The marines were being peppered with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades constantly.

They dragged these casualties on - one guy literally bled all over my right trouser leg as we brought him back. They both survived.

The character of the fighting is changed now, because they have pushed the insurgents right to the edge of Falluja. The insurgents have nowhere else to go - there's only desert and the US army beyond them.

Given the volume of gunfire which is being poured out by the Americans, any civilians who are still here, of course their plight is desperate

So in these last hours and days of the fighting, it is more frantic, it is more intense.

Q:If it's not safe to go out on the street, what is the situation for civilians there, as far as food and water is concerned?

Well, these are the crucial questions.

As an embedded reporter, I have a very limited ability, to be honest, to answer those. I see what my unit sees.

We have heard from the Iraqi Red Crescent that in their view, conditions are catastrophic inside Falluja - no food, no water, no medicines, no electricity.

On the other hand, the Iraqi health ministry, for instance, which is visiting this unit this Monday morning, says that the Red Crescent simply isn't in a position to make that assessment, precisely because it hasn't yet been allowed inside Falluja.

And the Iraqi health ministry's own figure for civilian casualties is 20, because it says most people are out of the town and those that are in have very sensibly - in fact they're compelled to - have stayed literally on the floor of their homes.

But given the volume of gunfire which is being poured out by the Americans, any civilians who are still here, of course their plight is desperate.

But to get any kind of assessment of the scale of the humanitarian tragedy - if indeed that's what it is - we have to know how many are here and we're not going to know that literally until the smoke clears.

Q: But as you travel with the American soldiers, do you come across civilians?

We saw literally a glimpse of civilians.

We were on the roof of a building - this was the first day of the battle in fact on Wednesday - and saw people waving white flags running away. And the marines stood up to say "Keep going, it's dangerous, don't come in this direction" and as soon as they did that, a volley of gunfire came in, because they'd revealed their position. And that was the only view of civilians that we have had.

One female civilian came to be treated at the medical post here and left before I had a chance to speak to her.

But I've questioned ordinary marines, officers and they say quite truthfully, we literally don't see civilians and that is the position of, I think, most of the US forces here - they do not see civilians.

Having said that, a big civil affairs effort is about to start.

The civil affairs people are arriving today with, just for this battalion, $20m to start very rapidly paying out compensation for damage, trying to repair things because they know - the marines know - they're going to be back here again unless they can win those famous hearts and minds.

Of course, I don't know how people are going to feel when they see their city and they see the holes in the mosques and they see the destruction that has been wrought by this battle.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Rebels Routed in Falluja; Fighting Spreads Elsewhere in Iraq
By DEXTER FILKINS and JAMES GLANZ

Published: November 15, 2004

FALLUJA, Iraq, Nov. 14 - American forces overran the last center of rebel resistance in Falluja on Sunday after a weeklong invasion that smashed what they called the principal base for the Iraqi insurgency.

While much of the city lay in smoking ruins and isolated bands of rebels still harassed American and Iraqi troops, the American takeover of Falluja addressed a growing problem that had gnawed at the Iraq occupation force for months. But American military commanders were reluctant to declare the invasion a total success and were forced to contend with insurgent violence spreading elsewhere, particularly in the northern city of Mosul.

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The governor of Mosul's province, saying he had lost faith in local security forces, called in thousands of Kurdish militiamen for the first time to help quell the insurgent uprising there. The American commander in the area, Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, called the situation "tense, but certainly not desperate," and said the next few days would bring more hard fighting.

Tanks and armored vehicles, their guns blazing in all directions, finished the sweep through Falluja early Sunday and were followed by infantry troops of the 15,000-member invasion force that had first besieged the city on Nov. 7. The patrols turned up huge caches of weapons in methodical house-to-house searches.

"We're sweeping through the city now," said Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, a senior Marine commander in Iraq. "We're clearing out pockets of resistance. There are groups numbering from 5 to 30. They're moving, too. They're trying to get behind us."

"People will never appreciate the movement of soldiers down here, what it took to move them and immediately conduct a relief in place with the soldiers," he said. "It ought to go down in the history books."

American commanders said 38 American servicemembers had been killed and 275 wounded in the Falluja assault, and the commanders estimated that 1,200 to 1,600 insurgents - about half the number thought to have been entrenched in Falluja - had been killed. But there was little evidence of dead insurgents in the streets and warrens where some of the most intense combat took place.

Army reconstruction teams were already beginning to survey the devastation in the city, which will require an enormous rebuilding effort. Most of Falluja's 250,000 residents had fled the city before the assault began and have been staying with relatives or in makeshift camps.

Solely from a military standpoint, the operation redressed a disastrous assault on Falluja last April that was called off when unconfirmed reports of large civilian casualties drove the political cost too high.

This time, the Americans, with the limited participation of Iraqi security forces, pummeled a dark and mostly abandoned city defended only by a wraithlike band of insurgents who fired Kalashnikovs, mortars and rockets at the Americans and then fled into alleys and apartment blocks, only to reappear elsewhere.

In the end they were no match for American armor, air power and military training.

As the battle for Falluja wound down, however, clashes continued for the fourth day between insurgents and American and Iraqi forces in Mosul. American commanders said guerrillas remained deeply rooted in the heart of that city. The revolt also appeared to be spreading to the town of Tal Afar, near the Syrian border, forcing American forces to encircle the area. In Ramadi, the insurgent stronghold 30 miles west of Falluja, violence against American troops continued as well. There were several attacks with small-arms fire, and insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at troops. American commanders said many rebels who had fled Falluja were now in Ramadi.

A representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq, condemned the violence of both the Americans and the insurgent fighters.

"What is happening in Falluja, Samarra, Latifiya and other cities in Iraq is a disaster, because the occupation doesn't want our cities to be stable," the representative, Murtada al-Qezweni, said during prayers in the southern city of Karbala at the start of Id al-Fitr, the three-day holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting.

In the northern Kurdish region, a member of the National Assembly died in a car crash on Saturday night after being ambushed by gunmen, Reuters reported. The politician, Waddah Hassan Abdel Amir, an official in the Iraqi Communist Party, and two of his aides were chased down by four cars between the cities of Khalis and Erbil.

Elsewhere, two relatives of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi were released by insurgents, though a third remained captive, Al Jazeera, the Arab news network, reported Sunday. News of the releases, attributed to unidentified sources, could not be immediately confirmed.

Those said to be released were the wife and daughter-in-law of Ghazi Majeed Allawi, a 75-year-old cousin, the network reported. The three were kidnapped last Tuesday. The next day, a group called Ansar al-Jihad posted an Internet message saying it would behead the three hostages within 48 hours unless Dr. Allawi called off the invasion of Falluja and released all prisoners in Iraq.

The fate of Dr. Allawi's cousin, Ghazi Allawi, remains unknown.

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin of France said at a political congress that he believed that two French journalists abducted south of Baghdad in August were in a relatively calm area of Iraq. Mr. Raffarin said the assumption was based on information from the journalists' Syrian driver, who was discovered in a house in Falluja last week. "The messages we are getting have reassured us a little," Mr. Raffarin said, according to Reuters.

The kidnapped reporters are Georges Malbrunot, a writer for Le Figaro, and Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale.

In Baghdad, rocket and mortar explosions jolted the downtown area and the fortified compound known as the Green Zone, which houses the interim Iraqi government and the American Embassy.

The absence of insurgent bodies in Falluja has remained an enduring mystery. Roaming American patrols found few on Sunday in their sweeps of the devastated landscape where the rebels chose to make their last stand, the southern Falluja neighborhood called Shuhada by the Iraqis and Queens by the American troops.

Now, the Americans are rushing in engineers who will begin rebuilding what the conflict has just destroyed.

Falluja's power grid, for instance, is so decayed that it must be turned on sector by sector or it will fail, officials said. If residents manage to return before the power is on, they could be without services like plumbing, water and heat, and any ensuing crises could aid rebels hoping to destabilize the reconstruction.

Even as those needs loom, however, military officials have not yet allowed aid groups into the city, saying that the situation is not safe. The decision has outraged some critics who say substantial numbers of people still need aid.

Although large-scale fighting in Falluja appeared to have ended, American commanders have been reluctant to declare success.

"We don't want this to become a microcosm of what this whole country has become," said one Marine officer who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the American claim of victory in Iraq in May 2003.

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said that it was too early to declare victory but that American and Iraqi troops had achieved one of their major objectives in eliminating the insurgents' largest haven.

Troops were still combing the deserted houses in southern Falluja on Sunday after a mechanized unit smashed through the Shuhada neighborhood the day before.

The searches have turned up large caches of weaponry like artillery shells and mortar rounds along with electronics for bombs and mujahedeen literature. Fearing booby traps, the troops generally entered the houses only after tanks rammed through walls or specialists put explosive charges on doors. American troops also discovered the body of a woman on a street in Falluja, but it was unclear whether she was an Iraqi or a foreigner.

As the searches moved southward through the neighborhood, leaving a swath of devastation behind, fighting continued around the city, and at least one marine was killed by a sniper on Sunday morning, shot through the head from an area that had been all but obliterated the night before.

It seemed clear that any further resistance would have to come from smaller bands of rebels rather than from a coherent fighting force.

In the northern city of Baiji, the site of Iraq's largest oil refinery, American troops fought off an ambush on Sunday morning, said Capt. Bill Coppernoll, a spokesman for the First Infantry Division. The troops called in air support and pursued the insurgents into a building. Apache helicopters fired missiles while M1 tanks blasted the building.

A Black Hawk helicopter carrying medical supplies north of Falluja was struck by antiaircraft fire on Sunday, but landed safely. Another helicopter was struck east of Falluja, but managed to land safely at the Baghdad airport.


Reporting for this article was contributed by Edward Wong from Baghdad, Eric Schmitt from Washington, Robert F. Worth from Falluja and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Karbala.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/11/15/international/fallujah.184.1.jpg

Patrick Baz/Agence France-Presse-Getty Images
American marines rode down one of the main roads in Falluja Sunday after a week of fighting that routed the rebels who had controlled the city.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/11/15/international/fallujah.184.1.for-real.jpg

ASHLEY GILBERTSON for The New York Times
An American marine counted antitank mines found in one of the houses searched in Falluja Sunday.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/11/15/international/falluja.184.2.jpg

ASHLEY GILBERTSON for The New York Times
A marine fired a rocket at a house in Falluja Sunday before it was searched for insurgents and weapons.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/15/international/middleeast/15falluja.html?pagewanted=2&adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1100544033-MHOpO5nVc2WavudhssBu6w

Ellie

[thedrifter]

November 12, 2004

Marines move through Fallujah

By Edward Harris
Associated Press


FALLUJAH, Iraq — Trooping past bodies and abandoned weapons, Marines blasted their way through walls and hammered open doors Friday in the hunt for insurgents in Fallujah. On the Muslim holy day, no calls to prayer were heard in a town dubbed “the city of mosques.”
As the main offensive pushed into the southern part of the city, Marines scoured a northern district looking for fighters hiding behind the front line.

“What we’re doing now is killing any that snuck in behind us or we might have missed earlier. And blowing up weapons caches,” said 2nd Lt. Adrian Pirvu, 22, of Dearborn, Mich., leading a patrol from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.

Explosions began rocking Fallujah at dawn and U.S. warplanes swooped out of the sky to blast targets with machine-gun fire. Howitzer and mortar shells slammed into the city, flinging chunks of shrapnel hundreds of yards.

“Damn, flying Harleys!” one of the Marines quipped as one piece of steel whirred overhead.

Heavy gunfire could be heard across the city of low, yellow-brick buildings silhouetted by tall minarets from mosques. The few civilians in the streets were outnumbered by dogs and cats skittish from the sounds of combat.

Avoiding narrow alleys that can be turned into deathtraps by guerrillas, the Marines moved through the neighborhood by using plastic explosives and blasting cord to knock down doors and tear open walls connecting darkened homes. They also leaped from roof to roof, carrying a sledgehammer to break open locked, metal doors leading down into buildings.

In one house, they found two bodies in a room scattered with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The two men, limbs stiff in the rictus of death, apparently died in combat earlier in the week when the U.S. offensive pushed through.

“The terrorists, they deserve it,” said Lance Cpl. Freddy Ramosavila, 22, of Commerce City, Colo. “Better them than me. They’re killing us, too.”

Marines said the fight had been easier, and faster, than they expected.

Officers estimated between 1,000 and 5,000 fighters were holed up in Fallujah when the attack began early Monday after a heavy artillery bombardment that collapsed some buildings and spattered shrapnel into others.

“I don’t know if they ran, but you can see all the weapons on the ground,” Cpl. Jeremy Mueller said, referring to the ammunition boxes, body armor, grenades and rifles lying in doorways on many streets.

“I guess they’re pulling back into the center of the city, where they must have stockpiles. But they won’t carry their guns, because they know if we see them, we’ll shoot them,” said the 23-year-old from Steelville, Ill.

As they moved from building to building, the Marines checked through cupboards and drawers, looking for weapons and ammunition, but more often coming across the mundane of daily life, including family photos and prayer beads.

Early Friday, a group of eight Iraqi civilians waved a green flag of surrender at the patrol, which herded the group together for transfer off the battlefield.

“We’re not animals. When we come across innocents, we try to hook them up,” said Pirvu, the commander.

They also captured a man in a white dishdasha robe who they said shot at them the previous evening.

Although U.S. commanders have warned that capturing Fallujah won’t immediately break the resistance, they hope stepped-up offensives against insurgents will spread security and increase the chances for successful elections planned for January.

Pirvu’s Marines see themselves as advancing democracy’s cause, by delivering Fallujah back into the hands of Iraq’s interim government.

“You can’t have a democracy across the country but, OK, not this city and not this city. That’s why we’re taking the city,” the lieutenant said. “Imagine elections where you say, for example, Alabama can’t vote?”



Ellie

[thedrifter]

Soldiers' Mental Traumas Surfacing
HeraldNet
November 15, 2004

WASHINGTON - Matt LaBranche got the tattoos at a seedy place down the street from the Army hospital here where he was a patient in the psychiatric ward.

The pain of the needle felt good to the former Army sergeant, 40, whose memories of his nine months as a machine gunner in Iraq had left him, he said, "feeling dead inside." Drawn from his neck to the small of his back, the dark outline of a sword is emblazoned with the words LaBranche says encapsulate the war's effect on him: "I've come to bring you hell."

In soldiers such as LaBranche, their bodies whole but their psyches deeply wounded, mental health experts say a crisis is unfolding.

One of every six soldiers returning from Iraq is suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress - and as more come home, that number is expected to grow.

The Pentagon, which failed to anticipate the extent of the problem, is scrambling to find resources to address it.

A study by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research found 15.6 percent of Marines and 17.1 percent of soldiers surveyed after they returned from Iraq suffered from major depression, generalized anxiety or post traumatic stress disorder - a debilitating, sometimes lifelong change in the brain's chemistry that can include flashbacks, sleep disorders, panic attacks, violent outbursts, acute anxiety and emotional numbness.

Army and Veterans Affairs mental health experts say there is reason to believe the war's ultimate psychological fallout will worsen. The Army survey of 6,200 soldiers and Marines included only troops willing to report their problems.





The study did not look at reservists, who tend to suffer higher rates of psychological injury than career Marines and soldiers. And the soldiers in the study served in the early months of the war, when tours were shorter and before the Iraqi insurgency took shape.

"The bad news is that the study underestimated the prevalence of what we are going to see down the road," said Dr. Matthew Friedman, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Dartmouth Medical School who is executive director of the VA's National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Since the study was completed, Friedman said: "The complexion of the war has changed into a grueling counter insurgency. And that may be very important in terms of the potential toxicity of this combat experience."

Initially, the Army sent far too few psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers to combat areas, an Army study released in the summer of 2003 found. Until this year, Congress had allocated no new funds to deal with the mental health effects of the war in Iraq. And when it did earmark money, the sum was minimal - $5 million over each of the next three years.

"We're gearing ourselves up now and preparing ourselves to meet whatever the need is, but clearly this is something that could not be planned for," said Dr. Alfonso Batres, a psychologist who heads the VA's national office of readjustment counseling services.

Last year, 1,100 troops who had fought in Iraq or Afghanistan came to VA clinics seeking help for symptoms of depression or post-traumatic stress. This year, the number grew tenfold. In all, 23 percent of Iraq veterans treated at VA facilities have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"And this is first year data," Batres said. "Our experience is that over time that will increase."

An Iraq veteran in treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Army 1st Lt. Jullian Philip Goodrum, drives most mornings to nearby Silver Spring, Md., seeking the solitude of movies and the solace of friends.

He leaves early to avoid traffic - the crush of cars makes him jumpy. On more than one occasion, he has imagined snipers with their sights on him in the streets. Diesel fumes cause flashbacks. He keeps a vial of medication in his pocket and pops a pill when he gets nervous.

"You question, outside of dealing with your psych injury, which will affect you from one degree or another throughout your life, you also question yourself," Goodrum said. "I trained. I was an excellent soldier, a strong character. How could my mind dysfunction?"

When it began to become clear that the war transmuted into a drawn-out counter insurgency, the Army belatedly pushed to reach and treat distressed soldiers sooner.

The number of mental health professionals deployed near frontline positions in Iraq has been increased. Suicide prevention programs are given to soldiers in the field. According to the Pentagon, 31 U.S. troops have killed themselves while in Iraq.

At more than 200 storefront clinics known as Vet Centers - created in 1979 to reach out to Vietnam veterans - the VA has increased the number of group therapy sessions and staff. Three months ago the VA hired 50 Iraq war veterans to help serve as advocates at the clinics.

The Army and the VA are also trying to catalog and research the mental health effects of this war better than they have in the past.

Ellie

[mrbsox]

But since I can't post pics :no: , maybe I can talk Ms. Ellie into load a few of them.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/fallujah-imagery-forces_s.htm

This is a pretty neat site, worth checking out.
I noticed that they flanked the ARMY units with Marines !!

Dialog at the mission briefing;

General:
Any questions ??

Army Bn Commander:
Sir, I noticed that we are flanked by MARINES on both sides. Not a question, sir, just that we'll do our best to stay caught up to them :banana:

Terry

[Sgt Morales, AM]

It's great that the Marines are leading the way, but isn't bad that their positions are on the internet? I thought that their positions were top secret? Wasn't Geraldo Rivera got kicked out of Iraq for drawing a map in the sand when he was riding with a convoy of soldiers? Just a thought!!!

[thedrifter]

Saddam Got $21 Billion from UN Oil Program -U.S. Panel

By Chris Baltimore

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime reaped over $21 billion from kickbacks and smuggling before and during the now-defunct U.N. oil-for-food program, twice as much as previous estimates, according to a U.S. Senate probe on Monday.


The monies flowed between 1991 and 2003 through oil surcharges, kickbacks on civilian goods and smuggling directly to willing governments, Senate investigators said at a hearing.


"How was the world so blind to this massive amount of influence-peddling?" asked Republican Sen. Norm Coleman (news, bio, voting record), head of the investigations subcommittee.


Coleman made public more documents he said were evidence of bigger kickbacks and payments than what was previously known, including 2003 data previously not reviewed.


The new Senate figure is about double the amount estimated by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which had pegged it at $10.1 billion. Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq (news - web sites), had estimated about the same amount based on Iraqi documents, with $2 billion through the U.N. program and $8 billion in smuggling by road or sea or in direct illegal agreements with governments.


The oil-for-food program began in December 1996 to alleviate the impact on ordinary Iraqis of sanctions, imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. The U.N. Security Council allowed Iraq to sell oil and buy food, medicine and other goods and let Baghdad draw up its own contracts.


This left room for abuse in the $64 billion program, administered by the United Nations (news - web sites) and monitored by a U.N. Security Council panel, including the United States, according to investigators.


Oil smuggling alone netted Saddam's regime about $9.7 billion, with other funds flowing from switching substandard goods with top-grade ones, as well as exploiting food and medicine shipments to the Kurds in Iraq's north.


Panel investigators also echoed the findings by Duelfer, head of the CIA (news - web sites)-led Iraq Survey Group, that Saddam's regime gave lucrative contracts to buy Iraqi oil to high-ranking officials in Russia, France and other nations.


On the list of 270 individuals, businesses and political parties was the head of the U.N. oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, who has vigorously denied the charges.


Other recipients include Russian ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his Russian Liberal Democrat Party. The Senate panel released a document signed by Zhirinovsky in January 1999 that invited a U.S. oil company to Moscow to negotiate to buy the oil voucher. The name of the U.S. company was withheld because of pending investigations, panel staff said.


In Russian press statements, Zhirinovsky has denied taking bribes from Saddam's regime, though he admitted meeting with the former Iraqi president during trips to Baghdad.


Senior Iraqi officials like former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz were also personally involved in oil talks, Senate panel investigators said.


In each case, Saddam's regime awarded a certificate that allowed the holder to sell the right to buy Iraqi oil at below-market prices.


The certificate holder would charge a per-barrel commission to transfer the rights to an oil buyer. Per-barrel fees were usually less than $1 per barrel but racked up big dollar amounts because allocations upward of 1 million barrels were routine.


The United Nations has refused to hand over documents to a U.S. congressional committee or allow Sevan to appear before a panel while its own investigation is under way, led by Paul Volcker, the former U.S. Federal Reserve (news - web sites) chairman.


U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York that Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) had telephoned Coleman and Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, "to assure them we are not being obstructionist" following an angry letter last week from the two senators.





Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines sift through Fallujah
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Margaret Coker - Cox International Correspondent
Monday, November 15, 2004

Fallujah, Iraq --- After nearly a week of fighting, the 3rd battalion, 5th Marines finally stumbled into Michigan on Sunday evening.

Michigan is the nickname the U.S. military has given to the main highway that bisects what is left of Fallujah. It marks the southernmost boundary of a rectangular area about 2 miles by 1 1/2 miles that this Marine unit was assigned to secure.

For political reasons, part of the force attacking the city drove from the north and swept south as quickly as possible. The assault on Fallujah has angered the country's Sunni Muslims, and the interim Iraqi government wants to declare victory here as quickly as possible.

But while the center of the American line pushed rapidly south, this Marine unit concentrated on three neighborhoods in the northwest and north-central parts of the city that were believed to be an insurgent stronghold. The Marines were given the nightmarish task of going from building to building to root out insurgents, disarm booby traps and find weapons caches.

When the exhausted unit finally made it to Michigan at 4 p.m. Sunday, the smell of success was a mixture of cordite and rotting bodies.

After the grind of gunbattles, aerial assaults and tank and artillery fire, the city resembles a Hollywood set. In the morning, it is turned on for battle, and at night, the streets, choked with rubble and dotted with decaying corpses, are eerily silent.

In some areas of the city, corpses lie on the street every 50 yards, rotting in the 85-degree heat.

U.S. Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski on Sunday put the toll of guerrillas killed in Fallujah at more than 1,200. There was no estimate of civilian casualties. A U.S. military statement said 38 U.S. troops had been killed and 275 wounded in the assault.

While this Marine unit has completed its objective, the city is still not secure. A battalion operations officer estimated that it will be at least two more days before the entire city can be considered under government control.

Military intelligence had said insurgents set up their headquarters somewhere in the three neighborhoods --- the Jolan, the souk and the park --- where the Marines were attacking. The only way to find them and flush them out was to search every building. Moving at a rate of about 600 yards every five hours, Marines had to work their way through the warren of streets.

In the Jolan district, the homes along the one-lane, dirt streets usually have a cinderblock or concrete wall that fronts the street. Between the wall and the house is a courtyard where the rebels would either rig booby traps or lie in wait to ambush the Marines. In effect, searching every home amounted to assaulting a bunker.

In many cases, before Marines entered an area, the homes would be attacked by artillery or planes dropping 500-pound bombs.

Next, a gunner with a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on a Humvee would begin his work. It takes about two minutes for a machine gun to either blow a hole in the wall or demolish the gate. With the courtyard exposed, the Marines would rush the building.

A typical street has about 20 houses, and the searches, punctuated with gunbattles, would begin at dawn and continue for 12 hours. At night, the soldiers would usually get five or six hours' sleep.

Sometimes, these assaults would go horribly awry. Three Marines were killed when, after entering a building, insurgents detonated explosives on the roof, sending the building crashing down.

Some setbacks

Just hours before the Marines secured their area Sunday, a platoon ran into insurgents in a building a block south of Michigan. In that assault, a soldier was first shot then wounded by a grenade. His leg later had to be amputated.

American firepower also entombed civilians who hid in their homes during the fighting.

The 3rd Platoon of the 3/5 Kilo Company rescued an Iraqi woman Sunday who was buried under the rubble of her house, hit by U.S. bombs five days ago. Although the woman was bleeding and suffered second-degree burns over 30 percent of her body, Marine doctors said she was in stable condition.

She told the Marines that her husband and two sons had died under the rubble.

While medics were waiting for a vehicle to evacuate her, three of her neighbors rushed out to cheer the U.S. troops. The oldest of the three men, a 51-year-old shopkeeper who did not want to be identified, told the Marines he had been detained Tuesday by a roving group of gunmen who, when they heard him talking on his cellphone and accused him of collaborating with the Americans. The man said he was trying to contact relatives to tell them he was still alive.

The man, who said he stayed in Fallujah because he was afraid of looters, said the gunmen took him to another neighborhood home where a group of 15 fighters were resting. He spent the night tied up but, when U.S. airstrikes became so severe that the houses around them shook, the gunmen fled.

"I've been so scared here. I've been scared that they would return and cut my head off," the man said.

Others were not so lucky. In one street, soldiers found three people who apparently had been executed. A man and a woman died hugging one another, each killed by a shot to the head. Nearby a blond woman, who Marines said they believed was a Westerner, had been shot and mutilated.

Two foreign women were kidnapped last month --- Margaret Hassan, 59, the director of CARE International in Iraq, and Teresa Borcz Khalifa, 54, a Polish-born longtime resident of Iraq.

Ellie