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thedrifter
12-12-04, 08:09 AM
Insurgents Wound 14 U.S. Troops
Associated Press
December 12, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents pressed their attack on U.S. troops and Iraq's security forces Saturday, killing five Iraqi police officers and wounding 14 American soldiers in a relentless effort to derail next month's elections. A U.S. Marine also was killed in the province containing the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

However, Iraqi officials maintain that vote preparations are on schedule.

The Marine was killed in action Saturday in the volatile western Anbar province, the military said. The Marine, assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, was killed "while conducting security and stabilization operations" in Anbar, a military statement said.

No further details were immediately available. Anbar contains the battleground cities of Ramadi and Fallujah.

The Marine's identity was not released. As of Saturday, at least 1,287 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The 14 Americans were wounded in separate attacks in northern Iraq. One car bombing and ambush wounded eight soldiers, prompting an American warplane to drop a 500-pound bomb on an insurgent position in Mosul.





"The commanders on the ground felt the attack was heavy enough to call in close air support," military spokeswoman Capt. Angela Bowman said.

Violence continues to grip the Sunni-dominated areas in central Iraq despite last month's U.S.-led assault on the main insurgent stronghold of Fallujah and on an area south of Baghdad. That attack was launched to try to curb the insurgency so parliamentary elections could be held nationwide Jan. 30.

The latest attacks appear to be part of a sweeping intimidation campaign aimed at foiling those elections, in part by killing Iraqis who cooperate with the United States, making them collaborators in the eyes of insurgents.

Police Col. Najeeb al-Joubouri was gunned down on his way to work on a road outside Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad.

Two more police commanders were shot and killed in Baghdad's southwestern Saidiyah neighborhood in an early-morning ambush. A senior Interior Ministry official identified the victims as Brig. Gen. Razzaq Karim Mahmood and Col. Karim Farhan.

Gunmen ambushed a police patrol in Baghdad's northern suburb of Azamiyah late Friday, killing a captain and a constable and wounding two others, police Lt. Mohammed al-Obeidi said.

The guerrillas regard the elections as an effort to legitimize a puppet government that will serve U.S. interests.

Iraq's government says the vote will go ahead as scheduled, and preparations continued Saturday, with election officials saying candidates from 70 political parties and coalitions have filed so far. The filing deadline is Dec. 15.

In other violence, gunmen shot and killed a Shiite cleric, Salim al-Yaqoubi, near his home in Baghdad, police said.

A second Shiite cleric, Sheik Ammar al-Joubouri, was slain Friday near Mahmoudiya, about 25 miles south of Baghdad, while driving to the capital. Al-Joubouri once headed a religious court of followers of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the southern holy city of Najaf.

In northern Iraq, a suspected suicide car bomber wounded two U.S. soldiers in Beiji, while two more were wounded in a car bomb blast near Kirkuk, about 60 miles to the north.

Two more U.S. soldiers were wounded by a roadside bomb outside Hawija, near Kirkuk.

A military spokesman said Saturday that U.S. commanders welcomed news that the Pentagon intended to speed up production of armored Humvees.

The issue of whether the military was providing enough protection for its troops received new attention this week after an Iraq-bound National Guardsman questioned Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in neighboring Kuwait on why he and his comrades must comb through scrap piles for metal to protect their vehicles.

"Commanders are looking for any opportunity to increase force protection for the sake of their troops," said Maj. Neal O'Brien, spokesman for the Tikrit-based 1st Infantry Division. "Uparmor or add-on armor will always be one of those force protection assets they want more of."

Ellie

thedrifter
12-12-04, 08:10 AM
December 10, 2004 <br />
Marines remember, honor fallen hero <br />
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by Cpl. J. Agg <br />
Marine Corps Base Quantico <br />
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MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. -- Eight Marines, united by a single fateful day...

thedrifter
12-12-04, 08:10 AM
Pentagon Steps Up Drug Tests Overseas
Associated Press
December 11, 2004

WASHINGTON - The military is increasing drug testing of its forces serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, in part out of concern that troops will turn to drugs because of the stress of combat, Pentagon officials said Friday.

Drug use is low in the military and primarily limited to marijuana, said Mary Beth Long, the deputy assistant defense secretary for counternarcotics. She spoke with the American Forces Press Service, an internal military news service.

But concerns about drug use center on Afghanistan, which has become the world's leading provider of opium since the U.S.-led campaign that drove the Taliban from power three years ago. Opium poppies can be refined into heroin; last year, Afghanistan accounted for 87 percent of the world's opium supply.

"One of the lessons that we have learned from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (in the late 1970s through the late 1980s) is that those troops went back to Russia with a drug problem," Long told the news service. "Our forces are obviously very, very different. We certainly have no expectation that they would suffer the same kind of issues."




But the increased stress of serving in combat areas could drive soldiers to readily available drugs, as happened to some during the Vietnam War, officials said.

In March, the Pentagon cited surveys that said 32 percent of troops stationed at home and around the world reported feeling "a lot" of work-related stress. Almost half said they believed their careers would probably or definitely be damaged if they sought mental health counseling.

The survey also found that cigarette smoking and heavy drinking were on the rise in the military. Use of illicit drugs is holding steady, however, far below the rate for civilians.

Ellie

thedrifter
12-12-04, 08:11 AM
Discontent Plaguing Military
Associated Press
December 11, 2004

WASHINGTON - Soldiers always gripe. But confronting the defense secretary, filing a lawsuit over extended tours and refusing to go on a mission because it's too dangerous elevate complaining to a new level.

It also could mean a deeper problem for the Pentagon: a lessening of faith in the Iraq mission and in a volunteer army that soldiers can't leave.

The hubbub over an exchange between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and soldiers in Kuwait has given fresh ammunition to critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy.

It also highlighted growing morale and motivation problems in the 21-month-old war that even some administration supporters say must be addressed to get off a slippery slope that could eventually lead to breakdowns reminiscent of the Vietnam War.

For thousands of years, soldiers have grumbled about everything from their commanders to their equipment to shelter and food. But challenging a defense secretary to his face is rare. So is suing the military to keep from being sent back to a combat zone.




"We are seeing some unprecedented things. The real fear is that these could be tips of a larger iceberg," said P.J. Crowley, a retired colonel who served as a Pentagon spokesman in both Republican and Democratic administrations and was a White House national security aide in the Clinton administration.

"The real issue is not any one of these things individually. It's what the broader impact will be on our re-enlistment rates and our retention," Crowley said.

Several Iraq-bound soldiers confronted Rumsfeld on Wednesday at a base in Kuwait about a lack of armor for their Humvees and other vehicles, about second-hand equipment and about a policy keeping many in Iraq far beyond enlistment contracts. Their pointed questions were cheered by others in the group.

The episode - the questions and Rumsfeld's testy responses were captured by television cameras and widely reported - did not raise new issues. Complaints about inadequate protection against insurgents' roadside bombs and forced duty extensions have been sounded for months. But not so vividly.

President Bush and Rumsfeld offered assurances that the issues of armor and equipment were being dealt with, and that the plainspoken expression of concerns by soldiers was welcome.

"I'd want to ask the defense secretary the same question," Bush said, if the president were a soldier in overseas combat. "They deserve the best," he added.

The display of brazenness in Kuwait came just two days after eight U.S. soldiers in Kuwait and Iraq filed a lawsuit challenging the military's "stop loss" policy, which allows the extension of active-duty deployments during times of war or national emergencies.

In October, up to 19 Army reservists from a unit based in South Carolina refused orders to drive unarmored trucks on a fuel supply mission along attack-prone roads near Baghdad, contending it was too dangerous. The Pentagon is still investigating the incident.

"Tensions obviously are rising," said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former adviser to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

"The fact is that you do need now to consider how to change the force structure: the role of the reserves, the role of the actives. Troops are being deployed in continuing combat under what are often high risk conditions for far longer periods than anyone had previously considered or planned for."

When the war began in March 2003, the troops were predominantly active duty military. Today, National Guard and Army Reserve units make up about 40 percent of the force.

The growing restiveness of U.S. troops in the Middle East echoes a drop in optimism at home that a stable, democratic government can be established in Iraq. A new poll for The Associated Press by Ipsos-Public Affairs shows that 47 percent of Americans now think it's likely Iraq can establish such a government, down from 55 percent in April.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan on Friday said that Bush "is committed to making sure our troops have the best equipment and all the resources they need to do their jobs. And that's exactly what he expects to happen."

Ellie

thedrifter
12-12-04, 08:11 AM
H. Thomas Hayden: Sunni Suicide

Iraqi Sunni boycott of the January 30th elections could mean political suicide for the Sunnis. Sunni religious leaders have called for a boycott of the January 30th ballot, and elements of the radical Sunni insurgency have warned voters against taking part. Others threaten civil war if the election proceeds.

It should be of no surprise to anyone that Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority has started to put aside their differences and present a unified list of candidates for the parliamentary elections. If the Sunnis boycott the election, this would surely mean a Shiite-dominated government and would probably lead to dire consequences for Saddam Hussein's former power base in the Sunni population.

The United Iraqi Alliance, organized under the leadership of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has brought together the main Shiite religious parties. This includes the radical group allied with Al Sadr, who until two months ago was leading an insurgent group fighting the Coalition forces. The United Iraqi Alliance is cementing the politics of Iraq's majority population. The slate of 240 candidates assumes major proportions in an electoral process anticipated by Shiites, who have embraced the prospect of attaining power at the ballot box after years of oppression by Saddam Hussein.

News reports on December 8th indicate that the Shiites are still bickering and the "alliance" may fall apart. The Sunnis had better hope this is so.

The January 30th election will choose a 275-member National Assembly, which will then name a new government and appoint the body that writes Iraq's new constitution. Iraqi voters will be asked to select an entire slate, and membership in the National Assembly will be distributed proportionally to each slate's share of the total vote. The United Iraqi Alliance's slate includes candidates from the country's minority Sunni Arabs and ethnic Kurdish and Turkmen; however, it is over two-thirds Shiite. Kurds have announced their intention to draft a separate slate that will probably command most of the votes in the Kurdish-dominated northern part of Iraq.

Let us be very clear of one thing, the insurgency will continue until the Sunni population, 20 percent of Iraq's 25 million people, is convinced that they have a viable future in the rebuilding of Iraq.

There is no doubt that the U.S. must shoulder much of the blame for the current insurgency in Iraq. It was originally reported that the Bush administration had planned to remove only the senior leadership of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist Party. However, when Ambassador L. Paul Bremer assumed control of the U.S. effort in Iraq, he removed every Baa'thist government worker down to street cleaners and then disbanded the entire Iraqi army. All were sent home without compensation, and no possibility of any future employment. This is what has fueled much of the insurgency.

It's not a matter of winning "hearts and minds." When people have no work and the enemy, the U.S, is doing nothing to improve their lot, there will continue to be unrest and an insurgency. It is funny how the U.S. has had great success in building bases in Iraq but cannot rebuild the Iraqi economic infrastructure.




Audrey Hudson wrote in the Washington Times, December 6, 2004, "Iraq's president said yesterday the insurgency will have won if his country's January elections are postponed, and he asked the international community to help quell the surge of violence that some fear might force a delay. 'There is no sacred date,' President Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer said. 'But the thing is, this is a challenge that Iraqis have to take. After reviewing the situation, I think the worst thing to do is to postpone elections. This will give a tactical victory to the insurgents, to the forces of darkness.'"

However, former U.N. special envoy to Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi, who is responsible for organizing the elections, is wavering on whether the elections can go forward amid the increasing violence.

Quoted in the Washington Times, Brahimi said, "Elections are no magic potion, but part of a political process. They must be prepared well and take place at the right time to produce the good effects that you expect from them."

Recent reports from the Pentagon indicate that an additional 12,000 U.S. troops will be sent to Iraq for election security, raising the total to 150,000.

Asked on "Fox News Sunday" whether that number was enough, Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, said, "It probably isn't." But he also added, the military is too small to do much more. "Many of us, as long as a year and a half ago, said you have to have more people there. You have to have more linguists, you have to have more Special Forces, and the Pentagon has reluctantly, obviously, gradually made some increases."

It was reported earlier this summer by a Washington, D.C, "think tank" that there are only three possibilities for the future of the Iraqis: 1) Balkanization like the break up of Yugoslavia, 2) civil war, or 3) continued civil (read insurgent) unrest.

The recent "classified" CIA Station Chief's memo stating that things were getting worse is absolutely true. The Rumsfeld crowd is in denial. They refuse to accept any measure of failure. Many in the Administration are now predicting American troops will complete their mission in Iraq within months. Rumsfeld says that U.S. troops will be home by the end of the Bush presidency.

I expect Iraqi security problems will continue long after the elections.


Ellie

thedrifter
12-12-04, 08:12 AM
Marine Wounded in Iraq Sacrifices Finger for Wedding Ring
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The Associated Press

VICTORVILLE, Calif. - When Marine Lance Cpl. David Battle learned he'd either have to sacrifice his ring finger or the wedding band he wore, he told doctors at a field hospital in Iraq to cut off the finger.

The 19-year-old former high school football star suffered a mangled left hand and serious wounds to his legs in a Nov. 13 fire fight in Fallujah. Battle, who is recovering at his parents' home in this desert city 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles, came under attack as he and fellow Marines entered a building. Eleven other Marines were wounded.

Doctors were preparing to cut off Battle's ring to save as much of his finger as they could.

"But that would mean destroying my wedding ring," he said. "My wife is the strongest woman I know. She's basically running two people's lives since I've been gone. I don't think I could ever repay her or show her how grateful ... how much I love my wife, my soul mate."

With his approval, doctors severed his finger, but somehow in the chaos that followed, they lost his ring.

Although Battle was disappointed, his wife, Devon, said she was honored.

"I can't believe he did that," she said. "At first I was mad when he told me, but then I realized how lucky I am to have him in my life."

The couple, who met in the eighth grade, were married in June, just two weeks before Battle left for Iraq. He hopes to eventually return to the Marines, and to replace his wedding ring, but that will have to wait until he recovers.

In the meanwhile, Battle's high school has planned a banquet in his honor next week.

"We need to make more David Battles," said Daniel Pierce, the school's assistant head coach. "He is one amazing guy."

Ellie

thedrifter
12-12-04, 08:16 AM
Helicopter support team hooks up with Warhorses during Exercise Desert Talon <br />
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by Cpl. Rocco DeFilippis <br />
MCAS Cherry Point <br />
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MARINE CORPS AIR STATION YUMA, Ariz. -- The Marines shielded...

thedrifter
12-12-04, 10:21 AM
Operation G.I. Jingle Connects Military Parents, Kids
American Forces Press Service

NEW YORK, Dec. 10, 2004 -- Dream Big Media, Inc. is offering members of the U.S. armed forces stationed overseas a new way to connect with their kids back home during the holiday season.

Through Operation G.I. Jingle, military moms and dads can send heartfelt holiday sentiments and well wishes to their children with a free "Jinglegram(tm) Greeting" – a streaming video and personalized letter from Santa Claus delivered via the Internet, according to Lori Anne Wardi, chief executive officer of Dream Big Media.

The G.I. Jingle video was designed especially for children of military parents and contains an uplifting holiday video message from Santa that will reassure them they're in their parents' thoughts and prayers, Wardi said.

Along with the video, military moms and dads can send a personalized letter from Santa intended to help holiday hearts be light - even in the face of difficult times.

"Operation G.I. Jingle is a small way that we can thank the men and women of the U.S. Military who devote their lives to defending our country for the honorable work they do every day." Said Mark Shilensky, chief financial officer of Dream Big Media, Inc., and co-creator of Jinglegram(tm) Greetings.

The company "hopes that creating a G.I. Jingle will bring comfort to the hearts of our service men and women, and joy to the hearts of the children who they love and miss so very much," Shilensky said.

To learn more about Operation G.I. Jingle and obtain a free servicemembers' coupon voucher, go to the operation's Web site.

Ellie

thedrifter
12-12-04, 10:46 AM
New York Times
December 12, 2004

Marines In Harm's Way

With 25 Citizen Warriors In An Improvised War

By John F. Burns

BAGHDAD, Iraq — On Tuesday morning, in dawn's chilly half-light, a group of 25 marines mustered beside their Humvees at a base in the beleaguered town of Yusufiya for a raid. The target for Fox Company of the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, was the family home of Sheikh Abdullah al-Janabi, who until recently led the insurgents in Falluja. The sheikh, who is 62, had become a fugitive, rated by American military intelligence as one of the most menacing figures in the 20-month-old war in Iraq.

The marines clambered into three "open back" Humvees, known among the troops as "suicide wagons" - pickup trucks armored only on the sides, with three-foot-high panels.

Though they had no inkling of it, the vulnerability with which they were setting out would soon become the focus of a new dispute over the war. The next day, in Kuwait, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was asked by a member of the Tennessee National Guard why his unit had to hunt through refuse dumps to find armor for vehicles that would carry them into Iraq.

That confrontation prompted assurances from President Bush to military families that "we're doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones," and a torrent of Pentagon statistics to support the contention that progress had been made in correcting mistakes made 20 months ago, when most of the 12,000 Humvees sent into Iraq for the invasion and its aftermath were unarmored.

Stung by the furor, the Pentagon announced that three-quarters of the nearly 20,000 Humvees now in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait carry protective armor. But realities on the ground are less comforting, as the vehicles used in Tuesday's raid showed. All the more poignant, the marines deployed on the raid, like more than 40 percent of all the 140,000 American troops in Iraq, were national guardsmen or reservists, citizen-soldiers, just like Specialist Thomas Jerry Wilson, the 31-year-old who confronted Mr. Rumsfeld over the armor issue.

Rooted in civilian life, these hometown warriors carry a heavier burden in Iraq than in any other American conflict of the last half-century. And Pentagon projections suggest that the proportion of reservists and guardsmen in Iraq could rise to 50 percent, particularly if the troop level of 150,000 planned for the Jan. 30 elections remains in effect afterward.

When scheduled troop rotations are completed early in 2005, the force in Iraq for the balance of the year will be composed of 6 brigades of reservists and guardsmen, and 11 brigades of active-duty soldiers. And many active-duty units have reservists performing support functions.

So in the 21st century, as it was at America's beginnings in 1775, it is the volunteer next door - the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker - who bears arms for his or her country, as much as the professional soldier. This presence, in turn, has helped to highlight the Pentagon's miscues in providing the troops at the front with the best available equipment, especially equipment that lowers the risk of serious injury and death.

While statistics are hard to come by, anecdotal evidence gathered by reporters in the field suggests that the old complaint of reservists - that they are often the last to get up-to-date equipment - still has some validity, even though Pentagon officials tend to deny it.

A week with the 2/24 Marines at their bases 15 to 30 miles south of Baghdad, in the heart of the area known as the Triangle of Death, was a window on the demands being made of reservists, and on the resourcefulness and resilience they bring to the challenges. There is little they cannot do, with hard work and improvisation, the battalion's officers say, reflecting the widely varied backgrounds of the men in the Chicago-based unit - doctors, policemen, engineers, teachers, carpenters, truck drivers, lawyers, computer specialists, community counselors, college students, to name a few.

These marines' tasks are as tough as any in Iraq, with the battalion's 1,200 men cast as spear-carriers for the new, more aggressive war-fighting, which found its starkest expression in the battle last month to recapture Falluja. The 2/24 has had no such concentrated target, but its men have been fighting a classic counterinsurgency war, carrying out nighttime raids and creating a permanent American presence.

They operate from new "firm bases" in the towns of Yusufiya and Latafiya and conduct extended vehicle and foot patrols in what had been a virtual no-go area for American troops until a few months ago.

For these men, the Pentagon's claim that all American troops in Iraq now go into combat with armored vehicles is contradicted by the experience of the strike forces that set out on the raids. All vehicles on the 2/24's missions have at least some armoring, but the devil is in the details. Some men ride in fully armored Humvees, with thick steel plating on every surface and the underside, as well as ballistic glass in the windows that can withstand small-arms fire and at least some fragments from roadside bombs.

These vehicles are now rolling off a production line in Ohio at the rate of 350 a month, soon to rise by an additional 100 vehicles a month. They will make, in time, a major difference to men like those who set out to raid Sheikh Janabi's home in the village of Jawan. For now, many of the 2/24's fighters ride in vehicles that are only partly armored, like the open-back Humvees.

The raid was conducted without incident, if also without any trace of the fugitive sheikh. But the unit has lost eight men killed in 60 days, several of them from roadside bombs, and there are few men in the battalion who have not endured the terrifying experience of a "daisy-chained" i.e.d., or improvised explosive device, a string of artillery shells dug into the roadside and set off remotely as an American convoy passes.

On other missions, the marines ride in Humvees that are even more vulnerable, with no protection beyond the bolt-on kits - mostly armored half-doors - that were the quick-fix solution for the rush of bombing casualties in the early months of the war. Matters were so desperate that soldiers of the 82nd Armored Division, deployed around Falluja, hastened through their turkey dinners last Christmas to resume welding metal plating for their Humvees from wrecks of Soviet-made personnel carriers from Saddam Hussein's disbanded army.

Along with the hazards of inadequately protected vehicles, the men of the 2/24 have had to cope with lesser privations. Chief Warrant Officer Jim Roussell, a 53-year-old Chicago police sergeant working with the battalion's intelligence unit, helps navigate predawn raids on insurgent safehouses with a pocket-sized satellite navigation device he bought with $500 of his own money, to make up for a shortage of the full-screen "satnav" devices the Pentagon installs in the best-equipped Humvees.

But one striking thing about life with the 2/24, as with other units struggling with inadequate equipment, was the absence of grinding complaint. These marines have bolted the hardships of their deployment onto the corps ethos of unremitting toughness, to the point that deprivation is less complained about than celebrated, as proof that the marines can overcome. This ethos seeps into the weekly letters that Lt. Col. Mark A. Smith, the 40-year-old battalion commander, a state trooper back home in Indianapolis, writes to the battalion's wives.

"Ask yourself," he said in his letter last week, "how in a land of extremes, during times of insanity, constantly barraged by violence, and living in conditions comparable to the stone ages, your marines can maintain their positive attitude, their high spirit, and their abundance of compassion?" Then he answered his own question. "They defend a nation unique in all of history: One of principle, not personality; one of the rule of law, not landed gentry; one where rights matter, not privilege or religion or color or creed; where 'chief among these are the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' They are United States Marines, representing all that is best in soldierly virtues."

Colonel Smith is a rambunctious fellow - driven, intolerant of half-measures, profane in his language. But his spirit is infectious, reminiscent of the eulogy Shakespeare wrote about a rebel commander who died in a doomed uprising against King Henry IV: "For from his mettle was his party steeled."

Among these men of the 2/24, and in countless other units like theirs, that mettle will have to serve for now as a substitute for the other kind of metal.


Ellie

thedrifter
12-12-04, 12:01 PM
A hero's sacrifice <br />
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Lance Cpl. T. J. Kaemmerer <br />
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Editors' note: The following is a first-hand account of an...

thedrifter
12-12-04, 12:05 PM
Defense sees it's fallen short in securing the troops. The grunts already knew

By Michael Hirsh, John Barry and Babak Dehghanpisheh
Newsweek
Dec. 20 issue

Predators know to hunt the weakest animal in the herd. So do the Iraqi insurgents. It is an essential truth about the Iraq war that's ingrained in soldiers like Pvt. Daniel Rocco, a Humvee gunner with the Second Battalion of the 82nd Field Artillery Regiment. Rocco's unit is an artillery regiment trained for conventional warfare, not escorting convoys. But the "Steel Dragons" of the Second now spend most of their days protecting the weak: VIP visitors and 18-wheel trucks loaded with food or other supplies on the road to Baghdad. In the process Rocco's unit gets hit regularly with small-arms fire, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and even suicide car bombs. He displays reddish pockmarks and scar tissue up his right arm, the effects of an IED from last May. "I really can't close my right hand," he says. And Rocco's Humvee is, today, equipped with "Gypsy racks"-steel-plated cages around the gunner-and other add-on, improvised hardware, known as "hillbilly armor." "It's Mel Gibson 'Road Warrior' stuff," says Capt. John Pinter, the battalion's maintenance officer. "We're not shooting for pretty over here."

This is the ugly reality that National Guard Spc. Thomas Wilson was apparently trying to convey to Donald Rumsfeld in Kuwait last week. There is no front line in Iraq. Or, to be more precise, the front line is wherever the insurgents decide it is. And very often they decide it should be trucks and unarmored Humvees at the back of supply lines-what used to be known, in other wars, as the rear area. Because the insurgents present a 360-degree threat, the most vulnerable units are often the ones the Army pays the least attention to: poorly equipped National Guardsmen or reservists in supply and transport companies. During a Q&A while the Defense secretary was stopping off in Kuwait, Wilson asked Rumsfeld: "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?"

Rumsfeld's initial response was testy. "You go to war with the army you have," he barked. Wilson's question, it turned out, had been planted by a reporter embedded with Wilson's 278th Regimental Combat Team, which was about to head into Iraq in a long convoy of unarmored vehicles. But Wilson's brave words brought applause and shouts of approval from the other 2,300 soldiers in the hangar at a base in Kuwait.

His question is still resonating. Many critics on both sides of the political aisle are asking whether the Pentagon is adjusting well to the insurgents' tactics. Is Rumsfeld, in other words, fixing vulnerabilities as quickly as the Iraqi insurgents spot them? President Bush reassured Americans last week that "we're doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones in a mission which is vital and important." But as the death toll climbs to nearly 1,300, some soldiers and defense-industry officials insist that much more could be done. Eighteen months after Bush declared that "major combat operations" in Iraq were over-and another war began-the most powerful military machine on the planet, replenished by America's unmatched industrial power, is still sending its soldiers, reservists and National Guardsmen down dangerous roads in soft-skinned trucks and Humvees.

Humvee factories, meanwhile, have not been operating at full capacity. And U.S. commercial steel-plate companies have been largely ignored by the Pentagon, which remains intent on supplying itself from a select number of Army depots. Perhaps inadvertently, the Pentagon late last week provided proof that it had not been doing its utmost. Two days after Rumsfeld's embarrassing exchange with Wilson, the Defense Department announced it was ordering 100 more up-armored Humvees a month from their main supplier, O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt in West Chester, Ohio. The Humvee armoring company had told reporters only a few days before that it was operating at 22 percent under capacity, but that there were no more orders from the Pentagon. Then suddenly there were more, for reasons the Army did not make clear. (The Pentagon claims it did not know about the additional capacity until the head of O'Gara's holding company, Armor Holdings of Jacksonville, Fla., announced last week that it was possible.) The new Pentagon order boosts production from 450 to 550 up-armored Humvees a month, neatly filling in O'Gara's capacity gap.

Every little bit of additional production will help. Of the 19,782 Humvees currently in the Iraq theater, according to the Army's latest numbers, only a little more than a quarter, or 5,910, are the new M-1114 model, which is armored top to bottom and can withstand the weight because it has an improved transmission, a 6.5-liter turbo diesel engine and a tougher chassis. An additional 4,737 Humvees have no armor, and most of the rest have been modified with add-on kits. The problem is that these add-on Humvees sometimes break down under the weight or move too slowly in dangerous situations. "The modified armor makes vehicles slog," explains Pinter. And do-it-yourself hillbilly armor sometimes makes the vehicles less safe, especially when exposed to bombs. Why? Because poor-quality steel can turn into shrapnel.

There are no firm figures on how many soldiers have died or suffered grievous wounds because of lack of armor. But even during the recent Fallujah offensive, several Marine infantry units rolled into battle with soft-skinned and open-backed Humvees. Many of the Marines grumbled that all the armor was being sent over to the Army. But some Army troops wouldn't agree: in October, members of one unarmored unit, the 343rd Quartermaster Company, refused to carry out a convoy mission because their vehicles were not adequately protected. Several members were later disciplined and demoted, though the Army declined to court-martial them. In a recent letter to the Army Times, Sgt. Scott Montgomery, who was part of a different unit that eventually did carry out the mission, said his convey was hit by an IED and that he was wounded by shrapnel. "Had we not had armor on our vehicle, my entire crew would have been killed," he said.

Rumsfeld arrived at the Pentagon determined to overhaul an antiquated Army, making it smaller, faster, lighter, but every bit as lethal. He succeeded, at least in the early going. Following the "shock and awe" bombing campaign, Rumsfeld's faster, lighter forces stunned the enemy by rushing to Baghdad in just three weeks.

But now an Army that has long wanted to retreat from heavy, slow tanks and Bradleys, which it once designed for use against the Soviets, suddenly needs them again. "If anyone would have told me a Humvee would be the platform of choice in a war, I would have told them they're crazy," says Gary Motsek, director of support operations for Army Materiel Command. His view was echoed last week by former Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, who told an audience at California's Pomona College that Humvees were never intended for combat. But Motsek says the Army has adjusted faster than many people realize. Last fall, he notes, when the Army realized the gravity of the insurgency, engineers at the Army Research Lab at Aberdeen, Md., designed the add-on armor kits for the Humvees "over a weekend."

Dov Zakheim—who, until his recent departure, was the DoD's comptroller—told NEWSWEEK that another holdup has been an "antiquated" acquisitions system. Zakheim said the Pentagon fixed the problem only in the past six weeks with "joint rapid action cells," which allow contractors to waive regulatory red tape in wartime. Other Army officials complain that the nation does not have the industrial base any longer to produce equipment for a new kind of war. That's one reason so many supply trucks—seven out of eight, in fact—are still unarmored. The Army's "family" of medium trucks is now made by a single firm, Stewart & Stevenson of Sealy, Texas. All the features that make trucks driver-friendly—like a big front window—also make it a nightmare to drive on Iraq's lethal highways. So the Army has contracted both with its own depots and with outside firms to build appliqué armor kits. But, as with the Humvees, the extra weight can wreck suspensions and drive trains and overtax the engine's coolant system. "The last thing you want is a well-armored vehicle that breaks down," says Denny Dellinger, president of Stewart & Stevenson. So he's designing a whole new armored cab. "The Army is doing a helluva lot," Dellinger says, but the tactics of the insurgents keeps changing.

Yet some critics contend that, contrary to what Rumsfeld told Wilson, America is not going to war with the Army equipment it already has. They claim that vested interests at the Pentagon are sometimes obstructing the best firepower and equipment available. Why? In part because the Pentagon is still obsessed with its "lighter, faster" vision and is hyping new, ill-tested armaments like the Stryker fighting vehicle. Much older equipment, like treaded M113 personnel carriers, lies unused in arms "boneyards" although they could be up-armored far more cheaply than Humvees.

Among these second-guessers is Rep. Robin Hayes, a North Carolina Republican. Hayes told NEWSWEEK that "the secretary of Defense exhibited a remarkable lack of sensitivity" in his remarks. Hayes said he has been frustrated by delays in getting several heavier armored gun carriers to the light-gunned 82nd Airborne, which first requested them a year ago. Four such tank-treaded vehicles are still sitting in mothballs in Pennsylvania. Army Gen. Richard Cody approved the transfer last March. But then the Army decided to wait for a newer system mounted on a wheeled Stryker, though the system has been held up due to reliability issues, according to a recent General Accounting Office report. On Dec. 9, a day after Rumsfeld's Kuwait appearance, Hayes wrote him a letter saying, "I simply cannot understand why we are not equipping our soldiers and Marines on the front lines with every weapon in our arsenal."

Other defense insiders say that better armor has not been a high enough priority, at least until recently. After 9/11, Boeing ramped up production of JDAMs, its precise, GPS-guided bombs, from 900 a year to 3, 000 a month for use in Afghanistan. (This past week, in the middle of the armor furor, Boeing announced that it had delivered its 100,000th JDAM kit to the Air Force.) "If they could do it for bombs, why couldn't they do it for armor to save lives?" asks Defense analyst Bill Arkin. Rumsfeld "could have awakened any morning in the last year and a half, determined to make sure every vehicle is properly armored and said, 'I want industry to jump through hoops to do it'," says one defense contractor. "I was infuriated he could be so cavalier." No doubt the Pentagon chief is getting on top of the problem now.

Ellie

thedrifter
12-12-04, 12:13 PM
Refections
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Frank C. Chase

I am a 75-year-old retired Marine, living in Florida, wherein I rejoice each morning in seeing the sun come bursting up out of the Atlantic, and knowing that my arthritic joints will enjoy another warm, and sunny day ahead.

However, at this Christmas time of the year, my thoughts are preoccupied with the memories of growing up in a little town in New England, named Swansea. The memories are overwhelming in terms of happy thoughts about people, places and events that took place in and around that Yuletide time of the year. I would like to share these memories with you.

I am looking forward to Christmas present ..but I can't help thinking about my Christmas' past.

Like Christmas Eve.. when my father, mother, brother and I went up onto the Christ Church parapet in Swansea Village …at 11:30 and for about 30 minutes, played Christmas Carol with our trumpets… before the midnight Christmas service…

I remember one night when it was gently snowing and it was full moon… the sounds of the trumpets echoed through out Swansea Village .. and when we stopped playing, I remember the stillness of the night…

I miss singing Christmas Carols with all the other teenage kids in Swansea Village..and being invited into the Christmas decorated houses for hot chocolate…

I miss the sound of crunching snow under each step ..or listening to someone shoveling snow and the scraping sound of the shovel…

I miss the sound of snow sliding off the roof.. or falling from the branches of the many large elm trees…

I miss hearing the sound of the snow plow passing by...

I miss hearing the sound of ice cracking on the Swansea Dam .. and gathering around the bonfires we built on the thick ice .. and the roasting of marshmallows...

I miss lacing up the white figure skates of my girl friend .. I miss holding hands with her as we skated along … and the moment of ecstasy when our cold noses touched for an instance. . I miss trying to impress her with my skating ability...

I miss seeing the breath escaping from my mouth .. when playing hockey against the boys from Gardner's Neck...

I miss wearing my new red and black Mackinaw and my L.L. Bean snow boots...

I miss the smell, in the night air, of the smoke from a burning fireplace ..or the sound of an Eastern Mass. bus with the clanging of a broken snow chain as it passes by...

I miss the sound of the Christ Church bell ringing before the midnight service.. I miss the lighting of Christmas candles by the congregation. ...I miss the singing of the Christmas Carols that we all knew by heart...

I miss the sound of Miss Eddy playing the church organ..and the comforting voice of Reverend Smith as he leads us in prayer...

I miss being one of the Three Wise Men in the Sunday School Christmas Pageant at Christ Church..and I miss all the fun we had preparing for it...

I miss the family trip to the Taunton Green and driving around the square twice to "ooh and aah" at the Christmas decorations...

I miss the smell of a real Christmas tree ..one that we cut down on my grandfather's property near the Watuppa Pond. I miss the frustration of finding the one bulb that prevents a string of lights from working.. I miss the sewing of popcorn strings for tree decorations ..and I miss the Christmas lights that bubbled.. I miss being asked to put the Angel on the top of the tree...

I miss waking up my mother and father before daylight and urging them to let my brother and me go downstairs to see what Santa had brought us..and to see if he ate the cookies we left for him…

I miss all the excitement of first searching through the stockings that were hung on the fireplace…all the while looking at the many Christmas presents under the tree...

I miss the afternoon turkey Christmas dinner at Grandma's house and watching my Grandfather carve the turkey and give the blessing...

Most of all .. I miss those who are no longer able to share the joys of Christmas with me.. but who instilled within me .. the spirit of Christmas giving .. and who never let me forget the religious meaning of Christmas day and the Christmas season...

I miss them for letting me have and enjoy these cherished Christmas memories...

And lastly, to all my friends who may read this.. I miss you ..God Bless and Merry Christmas!

Frank C. Chace
Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)
2800 North Flagler Drive
West Palm Beach, Florida



Ellie

thedrifter
12-12-04, 01:31 PM
Scrounging' for Iraq war puts GIs in jail <br />
<br />
Sun Dec 12, 9:40 AM ET <br />
<br />
By Aamer Madhani Tribune staff reporter <br />
<br />
Six reservists, including two veteran officers who had received Bronze Stars, were...

thedrifter
12-12-04, 05:57 PM
U.S. Strikes Fallujah; Two Troops Killed <br />
<br />
By PAUL GARWOOD, Associated Press Writer <br />
<br />
BAGHDAD, Iraq - American warplanes pounded Fallujah with missiles Sunday as insurgents fought running battles...

thedrifter
12-12-04, 06:22 PM
Iran Acknowledges Terror Convictions

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran acknowledged for the first time Sunday that it has convicted some Iranian nationals of supporting al-Qaida, saying the number was fewer than five.



The United States has accused Iran of harboring al-Qaida operatives, with some U.S. counterterrorism officials alleging hard-line elements within the Iranian regime may have developed working relationships with some senior al-Qaida officials who fled to Iran after the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan (news - web sites). Iran has rejected the accusations.


"A few pro-al-Qaida Iranian nationals have been tried and convicted," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.


Their number, he said, is less than "the fingers on one's hand," he said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.


He did not give details, including when they were convicted, what sentences they had received or what sort of support they had provided Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s terror network.


Asefi said cases of foreign nationals in Iran with alleged links to al-Qaida are still under investigation and no trial dates have been set, IRNA reported.


Iran has said it would try al-Qaida operatives in Iranian custody whose nationalities were not clear and who were not claimed by any country. It also has said it would try any al-Qaida figures accused of committing crimes in Iran.


Iran maintains it is committed to fighting al-Qaida, and insists it has significantly contributed to the war on terror by arresting al-Qaida suspects.


Last year, Iran said it was holding a large number of minor and more significant al-Qaida members captured in its territory. It also has said it has handed over more than 500 suspected al-Qaida operatives, mostly Saudis, to their respective countries.


Iran does not turn over any captives to the United States, with whom it severed relations at the time of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and has no extradition treaty.


Many al-Qaida operatives are believed to have fled to Iran, entering through the two nations' long, remote and porous border, after the overthrow of the Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan in late 2001.



Ellie

thedrifter
12-12-04, 07:53 PM
Three reporters and a Marine


Anchors Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and NPR Reporter Cokie Roberts, along with one Marine assigned to protect them were hiking through the Iraq desert one day when they were captured by Insurgents.

They were tied up, led to a village, and brought before the leader. The leader said, "I am familiar with your western custom of granting the condemned a last wish so, before we kill and dismember you, do you have any last requests?"

Dan Rather said, "Well, I'm a Texan so I'd like one last bowl of hot spicy chili." The leader nodded to an underling who left and returned with the chili. Rather ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."

Peter Jennings said, "I am Canadian, so I'd like to hear the song 'O Canada' one last time." The leader nodded to a terrorist who had studied the Western world and knew the music. He returned with some rag-tag musicians and played the anthem. Jennings sighed and declared he could now die peacefully.

Cokie Roberts said, "I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe someday someone will hear it and know that I was on the job till the end."

The leader directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder and Roberts dictated some comments. She then said, "Now I can die happy." The leader turned and said, "And now, Mr. U.S. Marine, what is your final wish?"

"Kick me in the ass," said the Marine.

"What?" asked the leader. "Will you mock us in your last hour?"

"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass," insisted the Marine. So the leader shoved him into the open, and kicked him in the ass.

The Marine went sprawling, rolled to his knees, pulled a 9mm pistol from inside his cammies and shot the leader dead. In the resulting confusion, he leapt to his knapsack, pulled out his M4 carbine and sprayed the rest of the Insurgents with gunfire. In a flash, all of them were either dead or fleeing for their lives.

As the Marine was untying Rather, Jennings and Roberts, they asked him, "Why didn't you just shoot them? Why did you ask them to kick you in the ass?"

"What," replied the Marine, "and have you three *******s call me the aggressor?"

Ellie