Marines' Raids Underline Push in Crucial Area

[thedrifter]

Marines' Raids Underline Push in Crucial Area

By JOHN F. BURNS
New York Times

MAHMUDIYA, Iraq, Dec. 5 - For marines staging a night raid on suspected rebel hide-outs across this insurgent heartland outside Baghdad, heading out of their heavily fortified base at midnight on Friday was a moment to make sinews stiffen.

Clearing the base's maze of dirt-filled blast barriers, Marine Strike Force Two, in a convoy of unlit Humvees, entered some of Iraq's deadliest terrain. Through dark towns and roads, dense palm groves and heaves of broken earth offered potential attackers ample cover. Men standing through Humvee roofs with night-vision goggles scanned the landscape for impending ambushes and roadside bombs.

In the 10 weeks since their battalion began operating in this area south of Baghdad, raids like this one by Strike Force Two have captured more than 250 people identified as suspected insurgents. Others, fleeing or resisting, have been killed.

The raids have taken an American toll, too. Since late September, the Second Battalion of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit has lost eight men. It has deployed in what has become, since November's battle for Falluja, one of the war's most crucial battle zones, some American officers would say its ground zero.

If American objectives in Iraq are to be achieved, commanders say, it is on small, closely knit units like Strike Force Two, with 32 men, and on the raids they stage almost nightly, that success may ultimately depend.

The primary mission of the 2/24 battalion, a Chicago-based Reserve force of 1,200 troops, is to destroy a network of insurgent cells that United States military intelligence has identified as the nerve center of the Sunni insurgency in central Iraq.

Until its capture last month, Falluja, 40 miles northwest of here, served as the insurgents' main fortress. Denying Falluja to the rebels as a sanctuary, American commanders believe, was a crucial first step toward regaining the initiative in the war. But according to American officers, months of intensive intelligence work have shown that Falluja served as a forward base for an insurgency that finds its enduring heartland here - in the powerful tribal families at its core, in uncompromising loyalties to Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of hidden munitions. The American commanders call the area, 25 miles wide and 50 miles deep between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, the "throat of Baghdad."

Commanders acknowledge that forces reaching Baghdad after the invasion last year understood little of the tribal underpinnings of Mr. Hussein's power - a social, economic, religious and political matrix that was transformed, after his overthrow, into a platform for underground resistance. While much about the insurgency remains obscure, the commanders are convinced now that much that is crucial to rebel operations is centered in this troubled region south of the capital.

At intelligence briefings in the former chicken factory that serves as the 2/24's forward operating base outside Mahmudiya, American officers ran laser pointers across a satellite map showing towns like Rashid, Yusufiya, Mahmudiya, Latifiya, Iskandariya, Haswa and Musayyib, saying interrogations of captured Iraqis have shown that these towns, and a score of outlying villages, mostly lying to the west of Highway 1, the four-lane highway connecting Baghdad to the south, are the key to many insurgent attacks mounted much farther afield, including bombings and kidnappings in the capital.

The focus of the marines' attention has been on two powerful tribal families, the Janabis and the Kargoulis, feudal overlords of much of the land between the rivers that the 2/24 marines now patrol.

Under Mr. Hussein, the Janabis and the Kargoulis were richly rewarded. Their area was the base for Republican Guard units, munitions factories, weapons research establishments and battlefield testing grounds, as well as a host of new industrial plants and depots. After the Persian Gulf war in 1991, when a Shiite uprising across southern Iraq was met with brutal repression, parts of the area around Mahmudiya, Latifiya and Iskandariya, where Sunnis and Shiites mixed were subjected to a form of ethnic cleansing, with Shiites of military age rounded up and shot and their houses bulldozed to make way for new Sunni homes.

Stalwarts of Insurgency

After Mr. Hussein's downfall, American intelligence officers believe, powerful elements in the Janabi and Kargouli families became stalwarts of the resistance, and an insurgent axis developed that turned the region south of Baghdad into a powerful support base for the insurgent stronghold in Falluja.

The tribes' most powerful figure, Sheik Abdullah al-Janabi, serving as the chief imam in the Mahmudiya mosque in Falluja, emerged as the effective leader of the insurgency in central Iraq. Shortly before American troops overran the mosque, he fled the city.

One of his brothers, Mehdi, made his power base in Yusufiya, a town that has been a center of the insurgency. Mehdi, too, is a fugitive, probably in Baghdad, American officers say. A third brother, Mahmoud, identified by the American forces as a financier of the insurgency, was detained, and is in Abu Ghraib prison.

American forces moved into this area as Baghdad fell, but a shortage of troops, and command decisions that limited offensives, led early this year to a situation in which much of the region became a rebel stronghold. Journeys through it became a deadly lottery, with daily bombings, ambushes and kidnappings.

Just as the assault on Falluja last month signaled a turn to a more aggressive posture by the United States command, so too has the evolution of American tactics here. Under the 2/24 marines, the policy since September has been to go after the insurgents. New forward bases have been opened in Yusufiya and Latifiya. The marines have conducted regular foot patrols through the towns. Raids on insurgent hide-outs and weapons caches have become routine.

The marines have fought pitched battles, including one on Nov. 12 at Mullah Fayyad, west of Yusufiya, that began with an insurgent ambush and developed into a fight that lasted more than four hours. Lt. Col. Mark A. Smith, the 2/24's commander, said the rebels were trying to open lines of retreat from Falluja.

"This is where the leadership of the insurgency have always lived, and now that they can't be in Falluja, they've got to come home," he said. "But our rule is, 'You ain't comin' home.' "

Colonel Smith, 40, an Indiana state trooper in civilian life, is the embodiment of the new, more aggressive approach - muscular, salty tongued and impatient. "We're going out where the bad guys live, and we're going to slay them in their ZIP code," he said.

"People around here are beginning to believe that the Americans are going to stay and go after the bad guys, and they're not going to leave until the job's been done," he added. "As that sinks in, opinion is swinging to our side."

Whether that is true is hard for reporters to gauge, considering that the only approximately safe way to venture into the towns is with a heavily armed Marine foot patrol. Beyond that, it is an axiom of life here that, just as under Mr. Hussein's rule, opinion among Iraqis is intimidation-led. People in the battle zones tend to tell reporters whatever they judge to be safest.

On an hourlong patrol through Yusufiya, though, some signs seemed to favor the marines. People of all ages approached them, some with complaints about relatives detained or wounded in the fighting, but far more with requests for medical attention, inquiries about reopening schools and clinics, or assistance in finding work. The market in the town, closed when the marines arrived in early October, has reopened.

When some in a crowd that clustered about the patrol appealed for the Americans to withdraw from the town so the insurgents would attack elsewhere, a debate ensued, rare for American troops anywhere in Iraq.

"Saddam didn't harm anybody in Yusufiya; at least he didn't kill anybody who didn't cause trouble," said a middle-aged Sunni woman named Fadila. "In any case, the situation was much safer under Saddam than it is now."

The patrol leader, Cpl. Jared Tio, 24, from Franklin, Wis., countered with a set piece of his own.

"We want you to live in peace," he told her. "But we need to work together to make this work."

Perhaps the most successful of the marines' tactics have been the nighttime raids. With more than 70 police officers in the battalion, the work-up for the raids at the Mahmudiya base has been strongly influenced by American police tactics. Colonel Smith said he attributed much of the unit's success in tracking down wanted insurgents to Warrant Officer Jim Roussell, a 53-year-old Chicago police sergeant who spent years working with the city's gang unit.

Mr. Roussell, a tall, spare man with a graying crew cut, agreed that tracking down insurgents in Iraq was not so different from hunting down street gang members. "In both cases, you're dealing with young people who are disenfranchised and angry and pick up weapons," he said.

To identify them, he said, the marines' intelligence unit follows family ties, picks up tips from street patrols and develops "snitches," many of them captured insurgents.

"It's ground-level intelligence, it's patrolling, it's interacting with people," he said. "At base, it's straightforward police work."

The raid by Strike Force Two on Friday night was based on a tip from an inmate at Abu Ghraib. The man had identified four brothers in adjacent farmhouses near Mahmudiya as participants in several recent insurgent attacks, including the seizure on Nov. 8 of 12 newly trained men of the Iraqi National Guard near Latifiya.

The 12 were found dead shortly afterward, machine-gunned against the wall of an abandoned mosque.

The four brothers fit the profile marines have come to expect of insurgents: Sunni Arabs, with experience in Mr. Hussein's armed forces, followed by government-assigned jobs in local industries, living comfortably off a plot of government-granted land. After their capture, they were handcuffed and loaded onto an armored truck for the ride back to the base.

Protesting Innocence

There, they were bundled into a detainee-processing center known among the marines as "the tent of no return," electronically fingerprinted, photographed and lined up for an iris-recognition test.

Throughout the raid, the men protested their innocence, as those rounded up usually do.

"America good! England good! Saddam bye-bye!" said a heavily mustached man who identified himself as Ali, a 14-year veteran of the old Iraqi Army. Around the corner from where he squatted uneasily in his handcuffs, his wife, his mother and his four children sat still amid a tumble of blankets where they were sleeping when the Americans burst through their front door.

They seemed calm, almost puzzled, by the commotion as the marines went through closets and boxes of documents and assured them that their men would be released if they were found to have no involvement in rebel attacks.

On Sunday, those assurances were fulfilled when Mr. Roussell, the warrant officer, and others in the intelligence unit at Mahmudiya ordered all four men released, having concluded there was no evidence to justify holding them in the killing of the guardsmen, or any other attack.

"It looks like the snitch in Abu Ghraib was acting on a grudge," Mr. Roussell said. "But that's O.K. We're following American principles here, and that means that we've got to be pretty darned sure we've got the right men before we lock them away. We don't want to be sending innocent men to Abu Ghraib."


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Three US marines killed in Iraq


Marines killed in two separate incidents while conducting security, stability operations in Al Anbar Province.


BAGHDAD - Three US marines were killed in Iraq's volatile Al-Anbar province on Sunday, the US military said Monday.

"Three soldiers assigned to First Marine Expeditionary Force were killed in action in two separate incidents on December 5, while conducting security and stability operations in the Al Anbar Province," said a statement.

The US military said earlier that two other marines were killed in the same western Iraqi Sunni Muslim province on Friday.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

MARINES FAMILY THANKS COMMUNITY


IT'S BEEN JUST ABOUT A MONTH SINCE A GREENE COUNTY MARINE WAS KILLED IN IRAQ. AND, THE FAMILY OF NATHAN HAMMOND IS STILL TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF THIS TRAGEDY.
NATHAN HAMMOND'S DAD SAYS, ONE OF THE MOST SURPRISING THINGS ABOUT THIS SITUATION IS THE WAY PEOPLE AROUND THE OZARKS HAVE RESPONDED. HE SAYS, IN THEIR DARKEST HOUR, HE AND HIS FAMILY HAVE FOUND STRENGTHIN STRANGERS. PEOPLE FROM ALL ACROSS THE WORLD HAVE EXPRESSED THEIR SUPPORT AND SYMPATHY FOR THE FAMILY BY SENDING CARDS, FOOD, AND MAKING BUTTONS WITH NATHAN'S PICTURE ON THEM.
NEXT WEEK, THE HAMMONDS WILL GO TO CALIFORNIA TO MEET WITH PRESIDENT BUSH AT HIS REQUEST.
HAMMOND SAYS, HE IS GOING TO GIVE THE PRESIDENT THE FULL SIZE AMERICAN FLAG THAT WAS FOUND ON NATHAN'S BODY WHEN HE DIED. HE WANTS THE PRESIDENT TO KNOW HE SUPPORTS THE EFFORTS GOING ON IN IRAQ.
AND, NATHAN'S DAD ALSO WANTS TO SEND OUT A SPECIAL THANKS TO THE PEOPLE OF THE OZARKS.

THE HAMMOND FAMILY HAS ALSO SET UP A MEMORIAL FUND TO GIVE TO A PLEASANT HOPE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT, WHICH IS WHERE NATHAN WENT.
THEY SAY, THE COMMUNITY HAS JUST FLOODED THEM WITH DONATIONS.
AND IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN DONATING, YOU CAN GO TO ANY EMPIRE BANK IN SPRINGFIELD AND TELL THEM YOU WANT TO DONATE TO THE NATHANIEL T. HAMMOND MEMORIAL FUND.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines honored
Battery to head to Iraq

Tammy Fonce-Olivas
El Paso Times

El Paso Marine reservist Andres Alarcon returned from Iraq two months ago -- and now he is going back.

The 1998 Eastwood High School graduate and other members of the Delta Battery, 2nd Battalion, 14th Marines, 4th Marine Division, are being activated and deployed to Iraq in January. The El Paso-based unit has about 130 Marines, most from El Paso.

"They are not making me go ... I want to go. We are a family, and I can't stay here knowing that they are out there," Alarcon, 24, said Friday at the ceremony honoring his unit.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, gave the unit members the Adelante Con Ganas award, the highest honor issued by his office, for serving their country and for their contributions to the Toys for Tots program. The unit collects about 20,000 toys yearly to give to needy children during the holidays.

For Alarcon, the most difficult part of going to Iraq is saying goodbye to his family, especially his daughter, who will celebrate her second birthday this month. He said he will also miss drinking Starbucks coffee, eating movie-theater popcorn and going to Chico's Tacos.

Alarcon, who works in the cafe of the Eastside Barnes & Noble Booksellers, has been a reservist since 1998 and was in Iraq for seven months.

Eastsider Robert Trujillo, a boiler mechanic for the Ysleta Independent School District and a first sergeant in the Reserve unit, said he has come to terms with the deployment because it is part of "my job." However, his wife and six children are not ready to see him go, though no tears have been shed yet, he said.

"They don't want me to go, but they have not tried to stop me," said Trujillo, a 1977 Riverside graduate and reservist since 1987.

Gunnery Sgt. Francisco Montes, 38, a project engineer for J.D. Abrams LP, said the unit was told in November about the deployment. Not being mobilized immediately is helping him and his family prepare emotionally for the separation, he said.

The extra time has allowed him to do something special for his daughter before he leaves. "We already did it. We went to Disneyland," Montes said.

Tammy Fonce-Olivas may be reached at tfonce@elpasotimes.com; 546-6362.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Wagonrod sends 21 care packages to Marines
By J.D. BRUEWER
419-993-2083
jdbruewer@vwtimes.com

Eldonna Wagonrod and her husband, Gary, sent 21 boxes of care package items to Marines in Iraq on Saturday.

Eldonna, with the help of coworkers and the community, has been collecting items to send to the Marines of the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Batallian. The unit her son, Christian Gurtner, was serving in when he died in April 2003.

The 21 boxes will hopefully arrive by Christmas. They costs $417 to ship, with $186 of that covered by donations.

The collection had reached about 17 boxes on Wednesday. See story here

Since then, more breakfast bars and other items were donated. The Wagonrods bought some more cigaretted and chewing tobacco for the Marines.

Eldonna Wagonrod was very happy with the items collected and sent.

"I think the guys will be estatic. A lot of it is just getting a package from home and 21 packages from home is just going to be awesome," she said.

She has already gotten questions about when the next collection will be.

"We'll do it again maybe in early April, I've got to get throught the holidays first.



Story

http://www.vwtimes.com/story.php?IDnum=9882§ion=News


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Student council spreading cheer to troops
By JOAN HELLYER
Bucks County Courier Times


Colin Drennen Jones wants to spread some holiday cheer to his brother and other U.S. Marines who are hunting terrorists in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The eighth-grader has enlisted the services of Newtown Middle's student council to collect snacks, small gifts and other treats in shoeboxes to send to his brother, Jamie Drennen, who will distribute the packages to his unit.

"It helps me deal with him being over there, because I know they care now," Colin, 14, said of his fellow students. He said local residents also are welcome to contribute to the effort.

In addition to his brother, Colin plans to send some packages to a family friend serving in Iraq and a contact at an U.S. military hospital in Germany, where injured troops are being treated.

The shoebox collection is one of two outreach projects under way at the Council Rock school in Newtown Township. The other involves a letter-writing campaign by the eighth-grade Stargazers team.


Social studies teacher Joe Fabrizio, a retired Marine major, is heading that effort. He will send the letters to a military police commander in Iraq to distribute among the troops.

As a team project, the students sat down at computers throughout the school Thursday morning and wrote letters of cheer. In her letter, simply addressed "Dear Lance Corporal," eighth-grader Samantha Blatstein thanked the Marine for being brave and courageous.

"If it weren't for you, we would not have a free country. And all because of you and your hard work, America is the BEST," wrote Samantha, 13.

Call 215-968-7200 to find out how to contribute to Newtown Middle's shoebox outreach project.

Joan Hellyer can be reached at 215-322-9714 or jhellyer@phillyBurbs.com.

December 6, 2004 4:52 AM

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines fine-tune selves for changing war tactics

Battalion winds up urban combat drills

By Rick Rogers
STAFF WRITER

December 6, 2004

MORENO VALLEY – The road to Iraq runs through March Air Force Reserve Base and arguably the closest thing to urban combat this side of Fallujah and Ramadi.

Today, Marines from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina will cap a week of learning the tactics of enemies they're likely to battle early next year in Iraq. They and 11,000 other Marines have been getting their final tuneup here before heading to the Middle East.

The units have realized – at times painfully – that insurgents fight smart and that they had better fight smart, too.

"It's a thinking man's war in Iraq," said Capt. J.E. Harris, 35, an instructor for the Marine Corps Training and Education Command. "It's not just columns smoking up the middle. Marines have to adapt every day. Hopefully, they leave here understanding what they need to do to succeed, whether that's killing insurgents or helping Iraqi people."

It's adapt or die because fighting in Iraq is a constant spiral of deadly thrust and parry, Harris and other instructors said.

Insurgents get better at placing roadside bombs, so the military finds a new way to beat that threat. Insurgents hide their muzzle flashes, so U.S. forces develop a different method for locating their opponents. And on it goes.

Maj. Larry Miller, executive officer for the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, said "every day there is a new tactic" the insurgents are springing on the Marines.

November was the deadliest month yet for the Marines, since the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003. At least 83 were killed and hundreds more wounded during combat operations in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, and by widespread attacks on U.S. forces during the run-up to national elections scheduled Jan. 30.

Knowing Iraq's immediate prospects for peace are bleak, the Marines continue to refine their training at March base, which is near Riverside. The unit has refined its patrolling techniques, roadside bomb detection and convoy operations.

"They take it seriously. They know that they are going to a place where they are likely going to be shot at," said Sgt. Maj. Rick James, 42, the battalion's top enlisted man. "This is about as realistic as we can get, and this is the kind of training that will give them the best chance to come home alive."

The base's abandoned and worn housing area, with its roughly 450 buildings along winding and confusing streets, makes a perfect "Iraqi village."

To this setting, the trainers add nearly 200 role players – some of them Iraqi-Americans – two make-believe mosques and a fake Iraqi police station. They also incorporate the sounds of automatic gunfire and roadside bomb blasts. Altogether, said instructor Harris, the Marines face a fair representation of what they will encounter in Iraq.

Lance Cpl. James Ogden, 20, a fourth-generation Marine from Virginia Beach, Va., said he and his fellow Marines are focused on absorbing all they can. Despite the training, they still fixate on what the "real thing" will be like.

"Most of the time, we talk about what to expect. We really don't know if it is really bad over there or not," said Ogden, whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all career Marines.

"Everyone is curious about what we'll be facing, but the classes give us a pretty good idea of what's going on," said Lance Cpl. Kenneth Mitchell, 20, of Ocala, Fla. "The way insurgents attack patrols here is the way they are doing it over there."

What the Marines might confront was on mock display Thursday: First, a squad on patrol was hit by a roadside bomb that "killed" two officers. Later, the same Marines walked into an ambush that took out two more.

Harris said the biggest plus of such training is that "it puts (Marines) in the right mind-set . . . they have to think before they shoot. They have to think about what they are doing, and what they hope to accomplish."

The Marines make mistakes during their exercises, he said, but they improve significantly between the time they arrive and the time they leave.

"We can't say that X number of Marines have survived because they trained here," Harris said. "But, from the information we're getting back from Iraq, we are going in the right direction."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Rogers: (760) 476-8212; rick.rogers@uniontrib.com

Ellie

[thedrifter]

'Don't ask, don't tell' faces court test
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the Nation/Politics section
The Washington Times

The Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy is being challenged by 12 homosexuals who have been separated from the military.

They planned to file a federal lawsuit today in Boston that would cite last year's landmark Supreme Court ruling that overturned state laws making sodomy a crime as grounds for reversing the policy.

Other courts have upheld the 11-year-old policy, but C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which is advising the plaintiffs, said those decisions came prior to the 2003 Supreme Court ruling.

"We think the gay ban can no longer survive constitutionally," he said.

Justin Peacock, a former Coast Guard boatswain's mate from Knoxville, Tenn., who is among the plaintiffs in the planned U.S. District Court lawsuit, was kicked out of the service after someone reported that he was seen holding hands with another man.

"I would love to rejoin, but even if I don't get back in at least I could say I tried to get the policy changed," Mr. Peacock said.

Lt. Col. Joe Richard, a Pentagon spokesman, said officials have not seen the lawsuit and therefore could not comment on it.

The so-called "don't ask, don't tell" policy allows homosexuals to serve in the military as long as they keep their sexual orientation private. It was a compromise reached during the Clinton administration, after President Clinton had proposed allowing open homosexuals to serve. The Pentagon's previous policy barred homosexuals from military service.

The Supreme Court ruled last year that state laws making sodomy a crime were unconstitutional. That decision overturned an earlier Supreme Court ruling that had upheld such laws.

Two other lawsuits challenging the policy have been filed since the high court's reversal.

One was brought in California by the Log Cabin Republicans. Mr. Osburn said that group could face a difficult fight because it was not bringing its suit on behalf of a specific injured party. He also noted that a federal appeals court in California has upheld "don't ask, don't tell," but the appellate court for Boston has not ruled on the issue.

In the other suit, which was filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the plaintiff, who was separated from the Army, is seeking to recover his pension and is challenging the ban.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines Choke Off Insurgents at `Throat of Baghdad'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By JOHN F. BURNS
The New York Times

MAHMUDIYA, Iraq -- For Marines staging a night raid on suspected rebel hideouts across this insurgent heartland outside Baghdad, heading out of their heavily fortified base at midnight Friday was a moment to make sinews stiffen.

Clearing the base's maze of dirt-filled blast barriers, Marine Strike Force Two, in a convoy of unlit Humvees, entered some of Iraq's deadliest terrain. Through dark towns and roads, dense palm groves and heaves of broken earth offered potential attackers ample cover. Men standing through Humvee roofs with night-vision goggles scanned the landscape for impending ambushes and roadside bombs.

In the 10 weeks since their battalion became operational in this area south of Baghdad, raids like this one by Strike Force Two have captured more than 250 people identified as suspected insurgents. Others, fleeing or resisting, have been killed.

The raids have taken an American toll, too. Since late September, the 2nd Battalion of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit has lost eight men. It has deployed in what has become, since November's battle for Fallujah, one of the war's most crucial battle zones, some U.S. officers would say it's ground zero.

If U.S. objectives in Iraq are to be achieved, commanders say, it is on small, closely knit units like Strike Force Two, with 32 men, and on the raids they launch almost nightly, that success may ultimately depend.

The primary mission of the 2/24, a Chicago-based reserve force of 1,200 men, is to destroy a network of insurgent cells that U.S. military intelligence has identified as the nerve center of the Sunni insurgency in central Iraq.

Until its capture last month, Fallujah, 40 miles northwest of here, served as the insurgents' main fortress, critically positioned on the western approaches to Baghdad. Denying Fallujah to the rebels as a sanctuary, U.S. commanders think, was a crucial first step toward regaining the initiative in a war that had threatened, in the rising tempo of insurgent attacks since spring, to spiral beyond control.

But according to U.S. officers, months of intensive intelligence work have shown that Fallujah served as a forward base for an insurgency that finds its enduring heartland here in what the U.S. commanders call the "throat of Baghdad," an area about 25 miles wide and 50 miles deep between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers. This area has powerful tribal families at its core, uncompromising loyalties to Saddam Hussein and the Baath party, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of hidden munitions.

U.S. commanders acknowledge that forces reaching Baghdad after the invasion last year understood little of the tribal underpinnings of Saddam's power -- a social, economic, religious and political matrix that was transformed, after his overthrow, into a platform for underground resistance. While much about the insurgency remains obscure, the commanders are convinced now that much that is crucial to rebel operations is centered in this troubled region south of the capital.

At intelligence briefings in the former chicken factory that serves as the 2/24's forward operating base outside Mahmudiya, U.S. officers ran laser pointers across a satellite map showing towns like Rashid, Yusufiya, Mahmudiya, Latifiya, Iskanderiya, Haswa and Musayyib, saying interrogations of captured Iraqis have shown that these towns, and a score of outlying villages, mostly lying to the west of Highway One, the four-lane highway connecting Baghdad to the south, are the key to many insurgent attacks mounted much farther afield, including bombings and kidnappings in the capital.

The focus of the Marines' attention has been on two powerful tribal families, the Janabis and the Kargoulis, feudal overlords of much of the land between the rivers that the 2/24 Marines now patrol. Like old European aristocracies, tribal families in Iraq have extended their influence into wide areas of life, serving not only as the principal landowners, but as political agents, senior military officers, imams of major mosques and owners of leading businesses.

After Saddam's downfall, U.S. intelligence officers think, powerful elements in the Janabi and Kargouli families became stalwarts of the resistance, and an insurgent axis developed that turned the region south of Baghdad into a powerful support base for the insurgent stronghold in Fallujah.

"This is where the leadership of the insurgency have always lived, and now that they can't be in Fallujah, they've got to come home," Lt. Col. Mark A. Smith said. "But our rule is `You ain't comin' home.' "


Ellie

[thedrifter]

A Hero's Courageous Sacrifice
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Tony Perry and Richard Marosi
LA Times Staff Writer
December 6, 2004

SAN DIEGO - Sgt. Rafael Peralta is dead, but the story of his sacrifice to save fellow Marines will live long in Marine Corps lore.

In the fierce battle for the Iraqi town of Fallouja, Peralta, with gunshot wounds to his head and body, reached out and grabbed a grenade hurled by an insurgent, cradling it to his body to save others from the blast.

The explosion in the back room of a house injured one Marine, but four others managed to scramble to safety.

Peralta, 25, an immigrant from Mexico who enlisted the day he got his green card work permit, was declared dead en route to a field hospital.

"If he hadn't done what he did, a lot of us wouldn't be seeing our families again," said Lance Cpl. Travis J. Kaemmerer, who witnessed the blast.

Garry Morrison, the father of Lance Cpl. Adam Morrison, had trouble keeping his voice from breaking when he spoke of Peralta.

"He saved the life of my son and every Marine in that room," Morrison said in a phone call from Seattle. "I just know one thing: God has a special place in heaven for Sgt. Peralta."

Similar gratitude was expressed by family members of other Marines in Peralta's unit who were close to the blast. The unit was Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division.

"The Bible says it all: 'No greater love hath no man than to give his life for another,' " Becky Dyer, the wife of Cpl. Brannon Dyer, said in a phone call from Honolulu.

"My husband and I both feel that way," she said. "That's how the whole company feels about Sgt. Peralta."

In a modest home in a blue-collar neighborhood, the Peralta family feels pride but also grief, anger and confusion.

Rafael Peralta was the oldest son: strong, a weightlifter and athlete, head of the family since his father died in a workplace accident three years ago. He loved the Marine Corps.

He joined in 2000 and recently had reenlisted. While in the Marines, he became a U.S. citizen. The only decorations on his bedroom walls are a copy of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and a picture of his boot camp graduation.

As Peralta waited last month to begin the assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallouja, he wrote a letter to his 14-year-old brother, Ricardo.

The letter arrived the day after several Marines and a Navy chaplain came to the Peralta home to notify the family of his death.

"We are going to destroy insurgents," Peralta wrote. "Watch the news…. Be proud of me, bro. I'm going to do something I always wanted to do.

"You should be proud of being an American. Our father came to this country and became a citizen because it was the right place for our family to be. If anything happens to me, just remember I've already lived my life to the fullest."

Peralta had left his mother, Rosa, with similar words. She said he told her, "I want you to be strong and take care of my brother and sisters because I don't know if I'll return."

His mother added, "I'm proud of him, but my heart is sad."

Rafael Peralta had not been assigned to the Nov. 15 attack on Fallouja. Still, he volunteered.

As a scout, assigned to perimeter security, he could have stayed on the periphery. Instead, he took the lead as his platoon stormed a house in search of heavily armed insurgents known to be hiding in the neighborhood.

The house appeared empty. Then Peralta opened a door to a back room, and three insurgents fired their AK-47s. Marines fired back at near point-blank range with M-16 rifles and automatic weapons.

Hit several times in the chest and once in the head, Peralta went down and appeared dead. Insurgents tossed a "yellow, foreign-made, oval-shaped" grenade toward the Marines.

To the amazement of the other Marines, Peralta, apparently with his last bit of strength, "reached out and pulled the grenade into his body," said Kaemmerer, a combat correspondent from the 1st Force Service Support Group assigned to the battalion.

Peralta's body absorbed most of the deadly fragments from the blast.

"Most of the Marines in the house were in the immediate area of the grenade," Kaemmerer said. "Every one of us is grateful and will never forget the second chance at life Sgt. Peralta gave us."

After the grenade blast, the house caught fire, and Marines repositioned in the street for a second assault.

Within minutes, the three insurgents had been killed by Marines and Peralta's body recovered.

In the hours after the battle, Marines spoke quietly of Peralta's heroism.

"You're still here, don't forget that," Lance Cpl. Richard A. Mason told Kaemmerer. "Tell your kids, your grandkids, what Sgt. Peralta did for you and other Marines today."

Even in their pain, Peralta's family members are not surprised that he decided to lead from the front.

"My brother was very courageous," Ricardo Peralta said. "He wasn't scared of anyone or anything."

Still, his older sister, Icela Donald, 24, wished that her brother had not been so brave.

"It doesn't surprise me that he did something like that," she said. "But it kind of makes me mad. He had a family, and we need him."

Donald, who lives in Florida, came to San Diego to be with Ricardo, their sister Karen and their mother.

The family has been accommodating to the media, but know that soon attention will shift. "People will forget about him," Donald said. "That's when it will hurt the most."

When Peralta's body returned to San Diego for burial, his family members were unable to recognize him. They identified him only by the Marine tattoo on his left shoulder.

Family members kept a two-day vigil next to the casket before burial Nov. 23 at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery at Point Loma, Calif.

Ricardo Peralta was the first family member to talk to members of the "casualty notification" team. Despite his youth, he knew instinctively why they had come to his house.

Among family members of Marines, there is no greater fear than seeing an official car pull up at their house, with Marines in dress uniforms.

Ricardo Peralta called his mother to hurry home from her job as a housekeeper at a hospital. Once home, she quickly became distraught and ordered the Marines to leave.

Donald said her mother had only recently begun to recover from the death of her husband and her son's fiancee.

Rosa Peralta's husband, a diesel mechanic, was killed in September 2001 when a truck he was working on rolled and pinned him.

In December 2003, Rafael Peralta's fiancee was killed in a traffic accident in Michoacan, Mexico, where she had gone to attend her mother's funeral.

"God is punishing me, but I don't know why," Rosa Peralta said.

Karen Peralta, 13, knows how she will remember her older brother. "As a hero," she said.

Does his heroism make it easier to accept that he is gone?

"No," she said quietly, her eyes downcast and filling with tears.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines of Force Recon Set the Stage in Fallouja
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Patrick J. McDonnell
LA Times Staff Writer
December 6, 2004

FALLOUJA, Iraq - Soon, the Marines would be marching forward in Great War-style formations on a chilly, rainy evening imbued with a sense of the apocalyptic. But for now, the troops crouched in foxholes gouged from the desert north of Fallouja, scanning the fireworks.

An immense barrage of air and artillery strikes rained down on the rebel-held city, and the Marines roared with every blast. Force Recon was at work.

Almost two days before the battle for Fallouja, the Marines' elite Force Reconnaissance units had infiltrated the northern periphery of town. They had dug into "hide sites" and "shaped" the future battlefield, calling in guerrilla positions for the spectacular bombardment that preceded the invasion.

" 'Shaping' the battle is making the enemy do what you want him to do," said Marine Gunnery Sgt. Ed McDermott, 35, of Force Recon. "You drop bombs on him. You make him pull back. You subject him to direct and indirect fire. You cut off his supply lines."

The prevailing narrative of the fight for Fallouja was the dominance of 12,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops over a spirited but outgunned and outmanned insurgent army.

Little noticed outside Marine circles was the important role of the several dozen troops of Force Recon, who reported on insurgent positions, spearheaded attacks, covered advancing infantrymen and squeezed off sniper rounds at unsuspecting bands of guerrillas.

"Force Recon provided us with some tremendous capabilities," said Col. Craig Tucker, who headed one of the two major battle groups that descended on this city last month. "I just can't say enough about the job they did."

The specially trained Marines are similar to Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets and Rangers. Their precise role is often shrouded in secrecy, but a group attached to the 1st Battalion of the 8th Marine Regiment during the battle of Fallouja agreed to talk as the fighting raged.

"We enjoy what we do," said Capt. Jason Schauble, 29, a Force Recon commander whose platoon suffered casualty rates of more than 50% during the fight, though most returned to action. "There's a lot of risks, but we're all volunteers. We understand the risks."

They spoke late at night in this blacked-out and devastated city from their perch in a darkened fourth-floor apartment that once housed guerrilla gunmen.

In one of the rooms, Staff Sgt. Mark Detrick lay on his stomach in classic sniper position, his rifle balanced on a tripod, its muzzle protruding through a punched-out hole in the wall. "They don't have a clue what's coming," Detrick said, scanning the ruins of the city to the south, where unseen combatants were still dug into the rubble and moving about.

The platoon's push into Fallouja had been difficult. Guerrilla squads of four to six fighters attacked from fortified positions in abandoned homes, alleyways, courtyards and on rooftops.

"We were shooting in all directions," Schauble said, recalling that first full day inside Fallouja. "There were enemy coming out, setting up mortars. There was enemy firing [rocket-propelled grenades], enemy firing machine guns and small arms. We shot all day, at different targets."

Guerrillas in sneakers and track pants scurried from house to house, using weapons caches pre-positioned in anticipation of the U.S. attack that everyone knew was coming.

At that point in the battle, the unit's task was to support the Marine riflemen who were advancing into the city. The Force Recon team was watching the flanks, where the insurgents, seeking to evade prowling U.S. armored vehicles, chose to attack.

"They found the seam - where we ended up being," Schauble said.

But Force Recon's role in the battle had begun earlier, when Marines hunkered down in the northern periphery of the city. They identified spots where troops on foot and in vehicles could cross the railroad tracks and pierce guerrilla defenses. Then they observed enemy positions.

On the evening of Nov. 8, the massive, pre-invasion bombardment of Fallouja began.

"We used F/A-18s, we used Harriers," said a pilot who served as forward controller. "When we needed it, we'd call in a strafing run," added the lanky, 37-year-old Marine, an officer who asked to be identified only as Frisky.

The Force Recon Marines advanced into the ominous streets of Fallouja. The gunfire, tracers and rocket flashes subsided as dawn approached. But first light broke with a renewed crescendo of gunfire. Guerrillas in ambush positions opened up from all sides. Some Marine units were pinned down for hours.

A Navy corpsman working with the Force Recon unit was hit in the back shortly after sunrise. Everywhere there was fire, some from the enemy, some from nearby Marines.

Detrick, under heavy fire, scampered into an open area on his way to what he hoped was a more secure position.

"As we were crossing to go, some machine gun and something else [coming] from an alley just lit my team up," Detrick, 29, recalled. "Right off the bat, my assistant team leader, he got hit and he was down, KIA [killed in action] automatically."

Detrick and others took cover at a garbage Dumpster, cut off from the rest of their unit. "As I was crawling up, they shot an armor-piercing round through that Dumpster," Detrick said. "It hit the ground in front of me and bounced off my left forearm. Hit the wall behind me and came back at me."

The staff sergeant got a good look at the round. The memory lingers: "It was basically a steel bullet about a foot and a half long, an inch in diameter."

Fortunately, the lethal projectile, meant to pierce tanks, didn't explode.

The firing leveled off about midday, as it often did during the fighting in Fallouja. The insurgents were inclined to take a break, grab a bite, maybe take a nap, before resuming their labors in the afternoon, Marines said. The respite gave the Americans an opportunity to retrieve the body of their comrade.

But by 4 p.m. that first day, the streets again resounded with gunfire, the crackling rounds of Kalashnikovs and the steady thuds of M-16s.

To the east of a Force Recon position, a group of insurgents was suddenly flushed from an alley. They jetted down an open street, apparently trying to join colleagues retreating to the city's southern reaches. Within minutes, four were slumped over, cut down by intense Marine fire. One of them had lugged a heavy machine gun and had several belts of large-caliber ammunition slung on his shoulders. The Force Recon troops say the four were probably responsible for the death of their comrade.

"There's a very good chance we got all or part of those guys who killed our guy," said the officer called Frisky. "I think it's important to mention that."

At nightfall on Nov. 9, the shooting subsided again. The Force Recon men joined other Marines in a tank-escorted formation headed south to the Al Hadra al Muhammadiya mosque, a former insurgent stronghold taken earlier in the day by U.S. and Iraqi troops after a short gun battle. Many Marines would rest here for the first time in 48 hours.

But the numbing pattern of fighting and advancing was unrelenting. On Nov. 12, three Force Recon Marines survived a pair of rocket-propelled grenades that blasted the apartment where they were holed up. Cpl. Frank Delgado was knocked unconscious by a separate RPG barrage and pulled from the rubble; he was later shot as Marines exchanged fire with attackers positioned in another mosque. Delgado was evacuated and survived.

In all, 13 of Schauble's platoon of 24 would be eligible for Purple Hearts for injuries sustained in the battle for Fallouja. Several, among them Detrick and Delgado, are in line for multiple Purple Hearts.

The rebels who had held sway for so many months in Fallouja were soon on the run, pushed south in an increasingly desperate struggle.

"It's likely some of the leaders left town and left their subordinates to fight the fight," Schauble said. "But we thought it was important to seize this city, to show the insurgents we were willing to go in."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Iraq war turns out heroes and unknowns
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mon Dec 6, 2004 07:52 AM GMT
By Michael Georgy

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - The offensive that crushed Iraq's fiercest insurgents in Falluja in November has turned U.S. Marines into heroes and insurgents into celebrated martyrs.

But there has been little glory from the countless unreported battles that just push up U.S. casualty figures, like the one which killed Marine Captain Patrick Rapicault in Ramadi.

A Frenchmen who became an American citizen, Rapicault had dreamed of becoming a Marine his whole life.

"If there was anyone who was going to make it big, Rapicault was the man," said his friend Marine Captain Robert Bodisch. "He was very determined and he was completely dedicated to the mission in Iraq. He believed in it."

After surviving several roadside bomb attacks, Rapicault's dreams were cut short by a suicide bomber who rammed a car into his routine patrol, far from the television cameras in the high-profile battle for Falluja.

"I heard the news at the mess hall," said Bodisch, a tank company commander who fought in Falluja. "I could not believe he was gone. The world will just forget him."

Nearly 1,000 U.S. troops have been killed in action in Iraq since the war that ousted Saddam Hussein last year. Including non-combat deaths the figure is more than 1,200.

The Falluja fighting raised the monthly U.S. death toll in Iraq to one of its highest levels since the start of the war. It's the type of conflict that yields many Purple Heart medals.

But most American troops have fallen in the ordinary, daily grind of clashes with insurgents, deaths that appear buried in long lists in newspapers and U.S. military websites.

"The Marines need to be humanised. You see the lists of the dead but more people need to know who these people were and what they were fighting for in Iraq," said Bodisch.

"We get support back home but people need to know about people like Patrick and what he stood for."

MARTYRDOM GLORIFIED BY INSURGENTS

Insurgents and foreign fighters don't face that problem. Death always brings recognition in Iraq or their hometowns in other Arab states.

They are celebrated as martyrs in the struggle against U.S. troops in Iraq.

Their bodies, still in fighting outfits, are wrapped in Iraqi flags. Families of martyrs offer meals and sweets to neighbours, relatives and friends in tents for up to three days.

One insurgent sniper named Ammar, who was killed in a U.S. air strike in Falluja before the offensive, was not given the whole treatment because people were afraid that gathering in large groups would arouse American suspicion.

But his name was hoisted on banners, and like other martyrs, it will go down in legendary tales about those who challenged American firepower in Iraq.

Many guerrillas go into battle hoping to be killed.

It's a concept that's alien to people like Bodisch and many other Marines who see their mission in Iraq as a war against "terrorists", not martyrs, to prevent a repeat of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Bodisch, who saw major combat for the first time in Falluja, gained a first hand view of insurgents in the western Iraqi city 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad.

"Now I have no doubt about what these people are all about and what they are trying to do and just how dangerous they are," he said, recalling how hardcore militants jumped in front of his 70-tonne tank and fired rocket-propelled grenades.

It convinced him that the United States should be fighting in Iraq.

As he sat in a mess hall where Marines boasted of success in Falluja, he learned of another militant, the suicide bomber who killed Rapicault, a Marine he never thought would fall.

Bodisch, 32, of Austin, Texas, first met Rapicault at a school for Marine Captains. He spoke of Rapicault's strong will, even in the face of constant attacks in the guerrilla-infested town of Ramadi.

Perhaps it was determination that eventually cost the 34-year-old Rapicault, of St. Augustine, Florida, his life.

"I just hope his death won't be in vain," said Bodisch.

Bodisch said he doesn't have much time to reflect on whether Rapicault will just be another name on a list. His men are still in Falluja, searching for insurgents hoping for martyrdom.

"I can't really think too much about Patrick. I can't right now," he said. "I will have to wait until I can sit down alone when I get home to really understand it all."


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Navy petty officer in San Diego refuses war duty <br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
By Chet Barfield <br />
San Diego Union-Tribune <br />
December 6, 2004 <br />
...

[thedrifter]

Fears Grow As Military Thins
Chicago Tribune
December 5, 2004

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's announcement last week that it will increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to 150,000 to provide more security for the Jan. 30 national election highlights a growing concern that America's armed services are dangerously overextended and possibly nearing a breaking point.

With nearly all of the Army's 10 divisions serving in Iraq, preparing for deployment there or refitting from a combat tour in that country, there are few forces available to deal with a new major threat or emergency, military experts say.

As Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, said at a congressional hearing last month, "I'm committed to providing the troops that are requested (for Iraq). But I can't promise more than I've got."

The Army is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and maintaining a military presence in the Balkans, Germany, South Korea and other foreign countries with a total force of just under 500,000. It had more than 800,000 under arms when it waged the brief Persian Gulf war in 1991.

"You need a bigger Army if you're going to carry out the Bush national security strategy," said Lawrence Korb, who served as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. "Right now, you're really using the reserves at an unsustainable pace, and you're violating the norms that you have for deploying people overseas that you've established not only for equity but for retention."





The United States has more troops in all branches serving abroad than it averaged from 1950 to 2003, and three times as many overseas as it had in December 2001, according to a study by the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

"If you look at the world - and what we're likely to see in the future in terms of potential threats and areas where we need to be involved, either to deter or actually conduct operations - I think it's clear that we need a larger force than what we have," said Michelle Flournoy, a former deputy assistant defense secretary now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has long maintained that the United States has been supplying all the troops the commanders in the field require. "If they ask for more troops, they'll get them," he said.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki was pushed into early retirement and Army Secretary Thomas White resigned last year after they argued that the United States would need several hundred thousand troops in Iraq to maintain security after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. Since then, Pentagon commanders have been reluctant to contradict Rumsfeld, on or off the record.

But in testimony last month before the House Armed Services Committee, Schoomaker hinted that an expanded force may be required, particularly because so much of the military burden is being borne by National Guard and reserve members who were considered part-time but have virtually become part of the active-duty force.

"If the Army National Guard or Army Reserve cannot muster and provide the formations that are required, perhaps we need to increase the size of the regular Army," Schoomaker told the committee.

The Defense Department announced last week that more than 183,000 National Guard and reserve troops are on active duty, compared with 79,000 on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Of the 138,000 troops still on duty in Iraq, 40 percent are Guard or reserve members.

For years the Pentagon operated on the theory that even with reduced force levels it could fight two "medium regional conflicts" simultaneously. Rumsfeld, who favors a leaner, more flexible military, has insisted the United States still has that capability. But increasingly that premise has come under question, and the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel for the defense secretary, has called for more manpower.

"While I don't think we're going to invade countries and attempt regime changes as a matter of routine," Flournoy said, "I do think it is likely that we'll need to engage in more than one theater at once, and the force we have today in terms of ground forces is not large enough."

The increasing seriousness of the situation emboldened Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., to assert during the campaign that re-electing President Bush could mean bringing back the draft.

"With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same, and the potential is great for a return to the draft," he said in an interview with The Des Moines Register.

To rebut that assertion, House Republicans arranged an election-eve vote on a reinstatement of the draft that saw it defeated 402-2, sending a clear signal that the idea was politically unpalatable.

While arguing against a draft, Kerry called for expanding the Army by two divisions, or about 40,000 troops, a position supported by Korb and Michael O'Hanlon, a national security specialist for the Brookings Institution think tank.

Rumsfeld has said more pay increases will be required if the Pentagon finds it necessary to add to the force. There also is a danger that recruiting standards might have to be lowered, as happened in the post-Vietnam era of the 1970s.

Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., John McCain, R-Ariz., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., successfully sponsored legislation for a permanent increase of the authorized ceiling on Army troop strength from 482,000 to 502,000. The administration already had used emergency powers to increase it to about 497,000, but only as a temporary measure.

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The White House has refused to fund permanently an increase in troop strength out of the regular Defense Department budget, insisting that the money come out of special appropriations because the increase is temporary. Every 10,000 troops costs the United States about $1.2 billion a year.

"I find it baffling," said Reed, a West Point graduate and former captain in the 82nd Airborne Division. "You don't have to be a trained military strategist to know that you needed more people in Iraq, and the only way to have more people in Iraq is to have more people in the service."

As a recruiting and retention inducement, military personnel received a 3.5 percent pay raise this year, plus increases in housing allowances and other benefits. About 40,000 servicemen and women have been held in the military beyond their retirement or separation dates under emergency "stop loss" orders, or kept overseas beyond their transfer dates under "stop move" orders.

The Army National Guard achieved only 87 percent of its recruitment goal in the fiscal year that just ended. According to Lt. Gen. James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, the reserve is short about 5,000 captains - officers who fill vital roles as company commanders or perform other important duties in the field.

Reserve and National Guard units also are losing midlevel non-commissioned officers.

"There is no question that the pace of our nation at war challenges our Army," Schoomaker said.

---

SIZE OF MILITARY DROPS IN LAST THREE DECADES

The number of U.S. troops on active duty has decreased considerably since the end of the draft and the Cold War. Some experts say the military must grow to meet U.S. commitments overseas.

U.S. ACTIVE DUTY TROOPS All service branches, in millions, 1950-2004

Korean War

Vietnam War

1973: Draft ends; switch to all-volunteer military

ACTIVE DUTY MILITARY PERSONNEL

As of Sept. 30, by service branch

Total: 1.4 million

Air Force: 376,616

Army: 499,543

Marine Corps: 177,480

Navy: 373,197

COUNTRIES WITH MOST

U.S. TROOPS BASED THERE(ASTERISK)

As of Sept. 30

Total: 287,802

Germany 76,058

S. Korea 40,840

Japan 36,365

Italy 12,606

Britain 11,469

About 170,000 U.S. troops are deployed in and around Iraq but have home bases elsewhere, including in the United States.

Source: Department of Defense

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Jenkins Ready To Begin New Life <br />
Associated Press <br />
December 6, 2004 <br />
<br />
TOKYO - First he struggled through 40 years of life in North Korea as a deserter. Then he spent a month in an American...

[thedrifter]

Grainger firm hosts Marines, families

'Operation Candy Cane': Breakfast buffet, gifts, carol singing, magic show




NEWS SUN STAFF REPORT

METTAWA — W.W. Grainger Inc. threw a party Saturday to honor area Marines and their families. Many of the Marines have served in Iraq.

The company invited more than 125 Marines and family members to its headquarters off Route 60 for a breakfast buffet that included a magic show, carol singing and gift-giving. Guests were welcomed by top company executives.

Company employees donated their time and gifts for Grainger's second annual "Operation Candy Cane," which has become a tradition for the Mettawa-based company, a supplier of maintenance products, said Susan Kessler, the firm's public affairs manager.

"We're thrilled and honored to host Marines and their families," she said, adding it is a way for company employees to pay back the military and families who are serving the nation.

Some of the families attending "Operation Candy Cane" have relatives currently serving in the combat zone, Kessler said.

The Marines were from Marine Air Control Group 48, Marine Tactical Air Command Squadron 48 and Marine Wing Communications Squadron 48, all based at Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago.

Last year's inaugural "Operation Candy Cane" event drew more than 80 Marines and family members. The Marines had been deployed to the Middle East in February of 2003 and provided support for operations from Kuwait to Baghdad.

Grainger employees in previous years have hosted sailors from Great Lakes for Thanksgiving dinners.





12/06/04


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Aiding and Comforting the Enemy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 6, 2004
by Jim Manion

Tommy Thompson resigned as Secretary of Health and Human Services. But in his self indulgent resignation speech, Thompson provided vital information to our enemies. So vital in fact that his words invite an attack on the United States directed at what Thompson told the world was a weakness in our system.

Thompson made the following inexplicable statement: "For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do." What?

It took no less than the President of the United States to respond to Thompson's invitation to terror. Despite our President's attempts to downplay Thompson's comments, Thompson left a trail of bread crumbs for our enemies.

No, he did more than that. Thompson informed the terrorist community of an as of now unknown weakness in our security. And this modern day traitor invited those who hate the United States to "come and get it".

I can come up with no explanation as to why a man trusted by our government would aid terrorists. It matters not that he did this consciously or unconsciously. He did it, and he put the entire nation at risk.

How would you like your neighbor telling an audience that included burglars that he knows that John Smith at 1111 Main Street, Anywhere USA was loaded with easily fenced items and left his back door open while he worked between the hours of 7 AM and 6 PM?

Tommy Thompson by his last pompous act as an outgoing Cabinet member has exposed the entire nation to extreme risk. It is time for the federal government to focus on behavior that aids and abets terrorists. regardless of where that behavior emanates. Tommy Thompson's loose lips may lead to the death of many US citizens. The man needs to be called on the carpet, and if necessary, prosecuted.

Frankly, Thompson's statements are inexcusable. Let's let a grand jury decide what happens next.

---Jim Manion is a freelance writer, and a retired Major in the US Army Reserves Military Police Corps, and is an Honors Graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. Mr. Manion now runs a small business in the heartland after practicing law for 24 years.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Commanders feel they've gained ground
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Bradley Graham
The Washington Post
Dec. 6, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A series of large military offensives over the past few months culminating in the battle for Fallujah have given U.S. military commanders here a sense of having gained ground against Iraq's fierce insurgency, but they predict no easy victory in pressing the attack and remain particularly concerned about a rising campaign of intimidation.

Indeed, senior officers say they regard the militants as still well armed and well financed, and likely to avoid trying to mass anywhere again after losing their primary stronghold in Fallujah. The officers say they expect the insurgents to engage in more decentralized operations and sporadic attacks while stepping up threats and violence against Iraqis who serve in the government or the security forces, or who otherwise cooperate with Americans.

"We do believe their tactics are going to change some," said Army Brig. Gen. John DeFreitas III, the top U.S. military intelligence officer in Iraq. "They will probably not mass forces again. They'll fight in small teams. We get some sense that they're thinking of adopting more guerrilla-type tactics - small teams, hit-and-run."

The dispersion and guerrilla tactics of the militants, U.S. officers say, will draw U.S. forces into more classic counterinsurgency operations characterized by focused raids, along the lines of the recent sweep through the northern part of Babil province led by U.S. Marines. Such troop-intensive operations are the reason behind the decision announced last week to boost U.S. forces in Iraq to 150,000.

But while the U.S. military has plans to pursue militants as they attempt to regroup, commanders appear frustrated by their inability to defeat the intimidation. An internal assessment of the U.S. strategy in Iraq, prepared for Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, concluded last week that "no silver bullet" exists for this problem.

The intimidation effort is blamed for undermining development of effective Iraqi security forces, particularly local police, as well as inhibiting Iraq's interim government, restricting economic development and generally fueling perceptions of insecurity.

A total of 338 Iraqis associated with the new governing structures or with the Americans have been assassinated since Oct. 1, according to U.S. military figures. This includes 35 police chiefs, mayors and middle-ranking officials. In Mosul, where 136 bodies have been found in the past month, U.S. officers suspect a particularly brutal and extensive campaign by fighters from the once-ruling Baath Party to target members of the Iraqi security forces.

"Having so far failed in its plan to 'decapitate' the Iraqi interim government, the insurgency appears to be concentrating instead on 'hollowing it out,' " the report to Casey said.

Polling data collected by the U.S. military show public confidence remains fragile, and many Iraqis have yet to commit decisively to legitimate government, according to officers familiar with the surveys.

Nonetheless, senior U.S. commanders here remain convinced that their military, political and economic strategies for Iraq are sound, according to interviews with more than a dozen generals in recent days.

The officers said they have been heartened by evidence of greater security and stability in Iraq's southern, Shiite-populated provinces since the assault in Najaf in August against the militia of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. They described moves toward next month's elections as generally on track, with more than 200 political entities certified and voter registration proceeding in most of the country. The notable exceptions are the Sunni-dominated provinces of Anbar, which includes Fallujah and Ramadi, and Nineveh, which includes Mosul.

"This is a fight, and in fights you have good days and bad days," Casey said in an interview. "But you don't measure success a day at a time. It's a constant process of going forward and, at the same time, keeping a lookout for what's going wrong."

As a sign of the damage done to the insurgency by the Fallujah operation, U.S. officers point to a sharp decline in the number of attacks nationwide, from a high of more than 130 a day at the start of the offensive in early November to about 60 now. But U.S. military intelligence officers expect the number to rise again before the national elections, set for Jan. 30.

Plans to intensify the pursuit of insurgents through targeted raids will increase the demand for timely intelligence, officers said.

"We don't lack for people to go thump in the night," said Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, who commands the task force responsible for the Mosul area in northern Iraq. "The challenge is getting the intel."

Officers noted linguistic and cultural factors limit the ability of U.S. troops to interact with Iraqis and develop their own actionable intelligence.

"Where we're going to get a lot of this is from the Iraqis," Casey said. "They know themselves, and we have to leverage that."

Other officers, however, described Iraq's reconstituted intelligence service as poorly organized and short of resources. Its capabilities remain immature and will take time to develop, the officers said.

One key aspect of the insurgency that U.S. commanders are watching closely is the extent of cooperation between former Baath Party members and radical Islamic fighters. The Baathists remain the dominant opposition group, according to military analysts, but signs of them entering loose tactical alliances with more radical elements have been evident for months.

Such alliances are suspected of underlying at least some of the recent surge of violence in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, where the police force collapsed under attack last month. Some U.S. officers worry about Mosul, or sections of it, possibly becoming a new insurgent stronghold, although the city's greater size and prosperity make it less susceptible than Fallujah was.

In some other Sunni areas, U.S. intelligence analysts have seen indications lately of Baathists reconsidering partnerships with radical Islamic elements.

"They're assessing their options," DeFreitas said.

The Baathist insurgency is centered on a number of key leaders, U.S. officers say, and lacks the scope of a popular Sunni resistance. But the officers warned that growing political alienation could lead to a broadening of the insurgency.

U.S. intelligence specialists suspect the Baathists are pursuing a dual strategy on the elections. If they cannot block the vote through attacks and intimidation, they might try to undermine the outcome by infiltrating political parties with their candidates, the analysts say.

One bit of polling data that several officers cited as giving them some encouragement shows that a majority of Iraqis expect to be better off next year. But other survey results indicate many Iraqis remain uncommitted to the move toward a new, democratic government. Public confidence in the interim government peaked last summer.

In Baghdad, Sunni support for "armed national opposition" was 40 percent in a November poll taken for the U.S. military, up from 35 percent in September. More Sunnis expressed support for the insurgents than confidence in the Iraqi government, which drew only 35 percent support in November. Approval of attacks on U.S. forces was also up, from 46 percent in September to 51 percent in November.

Under the circumstances, the internal assessment done for Casey has recommended changing one of the U.S. military's original aims, which was to bring Iraqis around to a more "positive" perception of U.S. troops. With hindsight, that objective now appears too ambitious, the assessment concluded, adding that "popular tolerance" would be a more "realistic aim."

"It's not about winning the hearts and minds," Casey said. "It's about giving the Iraqis an opportunity that they can pick up."


Ellie

[Arlene Horton]

Tommy Thompson has a record of being a self-indulgent s.o.b. during his unbelievable 16 years as Wisconsin's governor. The jerk made a speech to some "loyal Republicans" in northern Wisconsin a few years ago when he said "stick it to 'em", referring to the addition to the sales tax to help pay for that new baseball stadium in Milwaukee. The additional tax only affected the counties in the area around the stadium. Not the state capitol in Madison, not his dinky home town of Elroy or any of the other counties controlled by his Republican "homies". Since he gave up the position he was incredibly unfit to have as the head of "Health & Human Services" there are a lot of Wisconsinites who dread having him return to Wisconsin and further screw up the state government if he runs for office again. He is so pompous he "allowed" a building on the West Allis fairgrounds which was built to house the young farm kids when they were at the fairgrounds competing for ribbons for their efforts at growing and caring for their animals, to have the building named the "Tommy Thompson" building.