Deadliest Single Attack Kills 22

[thedrifter]

Deadliest Single Attack Kills 22
Associated Press
December 22, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A 122 mm rocket slammed into a mess tent Tuesday at a military base near the northern city of Mosul, ripping through the ceiling and spraying shrapnel as U.S. soldiers sat down to lunch. Officials said 22 people were killed in the deadliest single attack against Americans in Iraq since the start of the war.

The dead included 20 Americans, 15 servicemembers and five civilian contractors, and two Iraqi soldiers. Sixty six people were wounded, including 42 U.S. troops, Capt. Brian Lucas, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said early Wednesday.

Halliburton Co., a Houston-based company whose subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root supplies food service and other support activities for U.S. troops in Mosul, said seven of its workers were killed. Halliburton did not give the nationalities of the dead but they apparently included the five American civilians. The two other deaths, if correct, would boost the overall toll to 24.

Inside the tent, U.S. soldiers reacted quickly. With people screaming and thick smoke billowing, soldiers turned their lunch tables upside down, placed the wounded on them and gently carried them into the parking lot, said Jeremy Redmon, a reporter for the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch embedded with the troops in Mosul.

A radical Sunni Muslim group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility for the attack - the latest in a week of deadly strikes across Iraq that highlighted the unwavering power of the insurgents in the run-up to the Jan. 30 national elections.





In the early hours after the explosion officials said it could have been caused by a rocket, a mortar shell or a bomb left in the mess tent. But late Tuesday, Pentagon officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, said insurgents had fired a 122 mm rocket into the tent.

President Bush said the explosion should not derail the elections and that he hoped relatives of those killed know that their loved ones died in "a vital mission for peace."

"I'm confident democracy will prevail in Iraq," he said.

Portland (Maine) Press Herald photographer Gregory Rec, who was sleeping about a quarter-mile from the mess hall when he was awakened by the loud explosion, said he rushed to the scene, where a soldier told him "he heard a whoosh, he looked up and saw a fireball halfway between the ceiling and the floor."

The attack at Forward Operating Base Marez came hours after British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a surprise visit to Baghdad and spoke of a "battle between democracy and terror."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, responding to a question about how Iraqis will be able to safely get to some 9,000 polling places if U.S. troops can't secure their own bases, said there was "security and peace" in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces.

Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, was relatively peaceful in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime last year. But insurgent attacks in the largely Sunni area have increased dramatically in the past year - particularly since the U.S.-led military offensive in November to retake Fallujah from militants.

Like most mess halls at U.S. bases in Iraq, the dining area at Base Marez is covered with a tent. Insurgents have fired mortars at the mess hall more than 30 times this year, Redmon said.

Mortar attacks on U.S. bases, particularly on the huge white tents that serve as dining halls, have been frequent in Iraq for more than a year. Just last month, for example, a mortar attack on a Mosul base killed two troops with Task Force Olympia, the reinforced brigade responsible for security in much of northern Iraq.

Bill Nemitz, a columnist with the Portland Press Herald who was embedded with the troops in Mosul, told CNN that he heard "a lot of discussion" about the vulnerability of the tent.

Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a spokesman for Task Force Olympia, acknowledged the tent's vulnerability and told CNN the military is building a new dining facility at the base - a concrete structure that Nemitz said was supposed to have been ready for Christmas.

"There is a level of vulnerability when you go in there and you don't feel like there's a ... hard roof over your head," Hastings told CNN.

Base Marez, also known as the al-Ghizlani military camp, is three miles south of Mosul and is used by both U.S. troops and the interim Iraqi government's security forces. It once was Mosul's civilian airport but is now a heavily fortified area surrounded by blast walls and barbed wire. Its two main gates are guarded by U.S. troops; Iraqi National Guard members man checkpoints outside to prevent cars from getting close without being searched.

Earlier, Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia, said U.S. military personnel, American and foreign nationals and Iraqi soldiers were among the dead. "It is indeed a very, very sad day," Ham said.

Redmon said the dead included two soldiers from the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion, which had just sat down to eat. The force knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats as a fireball enveloped the top of the tent and shrapnel sprayed into the area, Redmon said.

Scores of troops crammed into concrete bomb shelters, while others wandered around in a daze and collapsed, he said.

"I can't hear! I can't hear!" one female soldier cried as a friend hugged her.

A huge hole was blown in the roof of the tent, and puddles of blood, lunch trays and overturned tables and chairs covered the floor, Redmon reported.

Near the front entrance, troops tended a soldier with a serious head wound, but within minutes, they zipped him into a black body bag, he said. Three more bodies were in the parking lot.

"It was very hard to watch and very chaotic but at the same time what amazed me was that within 20 minutes the worst of the wounded, the ones who needed the most attention, were out of there. It was just a remarkable effort by all the soldiers involved. From what I could see they performed flawlessly," Redmon said.

In addition to the two soldiers in the Richmond unit, two soldiers from Maine National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion were killed and 12 were wounded, the Portland Press Herald reported.

Redmon and photographer Dean Hoffmeyer are embedded with the 276th Engineer Battalion, a Richmond National Guard unit that can trace its lineage to the First Virginia Regiment of Volunteers formed in 1652. George Washington and Patrick Henry were two of its early commanders. Henry created the unit's motto, "Liberty or Death."

The base is also used by members of the Stryker Brigade, based at Fort Lewis, Wash., a military official said.

The Ansar al-Sunnah Army claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on the Internet. It said the attack was a "martyrdom operation" targeting a mess hall.

Ansar al-Sunnah is believed to be a fundamentalist group that wants to turn Iraq into an Islamic state like Afghanistan's former Taliban regime. The Sunni group claimed responsibility for beheading 12 Nepalese hostages and other recent attacks in Mosul.

Before Tuesday, Mosul was the scene of the deadliest single incident for U.S. troops in Iraq. On Nov. 15, 2003, two Black Hawk helicopters collided over the city, killing 17 soldiers and injuring five. The crash occurred as the choppers maneuvered to avoid ground fire.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Indiana Jones actor may play Mattis in Fallujah film

By: DARRIN MORTENSON - Staff Writer

CAMP PENDLETON ---- Hollywood "Marines" could soon be taking orders from actor Harrison Ford if Hollywood carries out plans to cast the leading man as former 1st Marine Division commander Maj. Gen. James Mattis in an upcoming film about the Marines' assault on Fallujah last spring.

In what entertainment writers say would be the first feature length film about the war in Iraq, Universal Pictures plans to base the movie on the upcoming book, "No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah" by Bing West, a Marine veteran and former U.S. assistant secretary of defense, according to the Reuters news agency.

Universal spokeswoman Jodie Henig said Tuesday that she could not confirm that any such project was in the works.


According to Reuters, Ford is to play the famously cantankerous general who led thousands of Marines to lay siege on Fallujah after four American contractors were slain by a mob in March 2004.

If the movie is made, Hollywood has its work cut out for it: Ford is hardly a dead ringer for Mattis.

A heartthrob actor best known for his roles as reluctant heroes Indiana Jones in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and Han Solo in "Star Wars," Ford, at 62, would portray 53-year-old Mattis, a gruff career officer perhaps best known for his almost monastic devotion to the military and his cunning on battlefields in both Iraq and Washington.

The two seem to have one thing in common: Marines seem to love Mattis as much as fans fawn over Ford.

Neither Ford nor Mattis could be reached for comment about the film.

West could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but late last week distributed a report on the plans by Variety Magazine to the North County Times.

The release stated that Universal subsidiary Double Features purchased options on a screenplay yet to be written by West and his son, Owen, who also is a former Marine and author of works of fiction about Marines in action.

According to the report, West's book is due out by summer from Bantam, the publishers of West's most recent tome, "The March Up," an account of last year's invasion of Iraq from the Marines' perspective in which West hails Mattis as the Gen. Patton of the Iraq war.

A Camp Pendleton spokesman who recently spoke to West about the proposed movie deal said that production would not begin for at least four years.

Variety reported that Ford has not signed a contract and that no money has yet been earmarked for production.

While the film has been billed as the "Battle for Fallujah," there was no indication that it would include the most recent battle for Fallujah in November, during which more than 60 U.S. troops were killed in brutal house-to-house fighting to clear the city of rebels and terrorists.

West's upcoming book covers last spring's aborted assault on Fallujah, where Marines were ordered to attack the city and then instead held their ground along its edges for three weeks. According to Marine brass, civilian officials eventually called off the assault.

Some analysts say the failure to see through the first assault ultimately made the more recent assault necessary because the Marines' withdrawal gave the insurgents a safe base of operations for six months.

The outcome of the most recent assault remains unclear as at least a dozen more Marines have been killed in mop-up operations against rebel holdouts and fighters who've sneaked back in.

The real-life battle for Fallujah seems far from over as U.S. forces continue to use air strikes against rebel positions inside the city and more than 250,000 residents have yet to be allowed back in more than a month after military leaders claimed to have "broken the back" of the insurgency there.

Contact staff writer Darrin Mortenson at (760) 740-5442 or dmortenson@nctimes.com.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines train to replace casualties

Advertiser Staff

About 100 Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment at Kane'ohe Bay are training in California to be replacements for wounded or killed Marines in Iraq, officials said.

Seventeen Marines and one sailor with the Hawai'i-based 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment have been killed in Iraq since Oct. 24.

The 2/3 Marines, training in California, are expected to return this week to Hawai'i, and will deploy on an as-needed basis to Iraq, officials said.

About 1,000 1/3 Marines and sailors deployed to Okinawa in July as part of a routine rotational deployment, but were sent to Iraq as part of the U.S. force buildup for an assault on Fallujah that began Nov. 8 to re-take the rebel-held city.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Getting Used To Home Takes Time
Associated Press
December 22, 2004

After coming home from a months-long tour in Iraq, Curtis Mills recalls driving his daughter to a recital and panicking when he saw a radio tower's blinking red lights.

"For a second, I almost yelled out 'Tracers at 11 o'clock!'" Mills said sheepishly during a break from shoveling snow from his driveway in Shapleigh, Maine. "Then I realized it was just an antenna."

For soldiers of the Army Reserve's 94th Military Police Company, which was mobilized for a grueling 20 months, returning to cozy hometowns across New England has been a struggle with the unexpected.

Everyday sounds such as backfiring cars and slammed doors send them into panicked alert. They react by scanning rooftops for snipers or scouring crowds for anything out of the ordinary.

"You don't get through a day without thinking about it. No matter what I do, there's always something," said Mills, a postal worker who was hospitalized for 11 months after surviving a roadside bomb that detonated beneath his Humvee near Ramadi.




The 94th bears the dubious distinction of being one of the longest-mobilized military reserve units since the Korean War, and the MPs are believed to be among the longest-deployed soldiers to Iraq, officials say.

Mobilized in December 2002, about 160 soldiers were sent to Iraq four months later for a planned 365-day tour. Twice the soldiers were ready to leave when their deployment was extended; at Easter, they were hours away from boarding their flight home when the unexpected news they would stay was delivered.

The company of soldiers from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island returned in August from its deployment, the last months of which were in the dangerous Sunni Triangle north and west of Baghdad.

Richard Stegeman, 35, a cardiovascular specialist from Dayton, Maine, served as a medic for the 94th and cared for Mills when he was injured. When Stegeman returned home, he said he was distracted by cell phones, which insurgents used to detonate roadside bombs.

"I still wake up sometimes thinking 'Am I really home, or is this all a dream?'" Stegeman said. "Even though we've been home for four months, sometimes it doesn't feel that I'm even here at all."

Heightened sensitivity, sleeplessness, and hair-trigger responsiveness to unexpected sounds and sights are all symptoms of combat stress, psychologists say.

"When you're in a war environment for a long period of time, that can affect you," said Capt. Bobby Sidell, a clinical psychologist at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. "And if you're knee-deep in it, it's hard to kind of take that objective step back."

In the 94th's case, the symptoms can be compounded by the length of deployment and frustration that accompanied the extensions, Sidell said.

The military offers psychological services to combat veterans, but Sidell said soldiers often are unaware of their need for them when they return or get lost in the shuffle.

The soldiers are based in Londonderry, N.H., and there's an additional detachment in Saco, Maine. They had been home for about a year after serving in Bosnia when they learned they were going to Iraq.

There, the soldiers ran police academies in Ramadi and worked in hot spots like Fallujah, providing escorts to convoys and security to soldiers conducting offensive maneuvers that included house-to-house searches.

Some in the unit have returned to weekend drills, knowing that they could be deployed again. But they say the process of returning to their lives takes time.

Stephen Whittredge, a network administrator who grew up in New Hampshire but now lives in Gloucester, Mass., was in the active Army in Somalia and has dealt with the nightmares after combat and a fear of crowds before. He re-enlisted with the reserves and served for the duration of the 94th's deployment.

Even now he chooses to spend most of his time alone. He still can't help but flinch and duck at loud noises.

"I prefer to stay in my house and not do anything or see anybody," said Whittredge, 36. "I know soldiers want to go back, but I am definitely not one of those soldiers. I don't want to die this young."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Force Protection, Inc. Continues Shipment of Armored Vehicles to U.S. Army and U.S. Marines in Iraq

LADSON, S.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 21, 2004--Force Protection, Inc. (OTCBB:FRCP - News), the leading U.S. manufacturer of mine- and blast-protected vehicles for military and security personnel, announced today the shipment of two additional Buffalo mine clearance vehicles to the U.S. Army in Iraq and one additional Cougar vehicle to the U.S. Marines. These shipments take place, as the rate of production continues to increase at Force Protection's plant in Ladson, South Carolina.


"Our primary objective at Force Protection is to meet the needs of those we serve," said Force Protection CEO Gale Aguilar. "The Army and Marines clearly are doing everything they can to provide ballistic protected vehicles to our troops, and Force Protection is dedicated to doing whatever is required to provide our cutting-edge technology to meet demand."

The U.S. Army recently reported that it will spend more than $4 billion in the coming months to ship armored vehicles to Iraq to protect troops against insurgents. "This provides a remarkable opportunity for Force Protection," said Aguilar. "It gives us the opportunity to amaze a few people with our technology, our capacity, and our motivation to support the troops. And that's what we're going to do."

"Warfare has changed," said Force Protection Vice President Michael Aldrich. "Land mines and IEDs are the most common threat our soldiers face, and they have had a devastating effect. Our vehicles are designed from ground up to counter this threat and save lives. Rather than being retrofitted like vehicles that are not designed to protect against blasts, ours use the most advanced technology in the world to provide our troops what they need for their safety."

Force Protection produces two types of armored vehicles. The Buffalo is a mine clearance vehicle that has recently been approved by the Pentagon to be part of two test "hunter/killer" teams of lead convoy vehicles designated to detect and remove mines and IEDs. The cutting-edge technology of the Buffalo employs steel wheels and disc rollers, enabling it to withstand mine blasts and ensuring that other vehicles can safely follow. More than 20 Buffalo vehicles will be in Iraq by the end of 2004. The Army recently ordered 15 more Buffalos for an estimated $11.8 million.

The Cougar H series is a family of medium-size mine-protected vehicles that can be supplied in four-wheel or six-wheel models. The vehicles can be configured for a wide range of tasks including troop transport, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), command and control, reconnaissance and lead convoy vehicle. Marine Commandant Michael W. Hagee recently inspected it in Iraq where it is being used by the Marines.

About Force Protection, Inc.

Force Protection, Inc. manufactures ballistic and mine protected vehicles through its wholly owned subsidiary. These specialty vehicles are protected against landmines, hostile fire, and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs, commonly referred to as roadside bombs). Force Protection's mine and ballistic protection technology is among the most advanced in the world. The vehicles are manufactured outside Charleston, S.C.

For more information, visit http://www.forceprotectioninc.com.

This release contains forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements concerning our business, future plans and objectives and the performance of our products. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties ultimately may not prove to be accurate. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Technical complications may arise that could prevent the prompt implementation of the strategic plan outlined above. The company cautions that these forward looking statements are further qualified by other factors including, but not limited to, those set forth in the company's Form 10-KSB filing and other filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (available at http://www.sec.gov). The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any statements in this release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Tent Was Being Replaced With Bunker
Associated Press
December 22, 2004

WASHINGTON - Worried about recent artillery attacks on American mess halls in Iraq, the U.S. military was just days away from completing a reinforced dining area at the camp where a rocket attack killed more than 20 people in a tent the bunker was meant to replace.

Iraqi insurgents have attacked several U.S. military dining hall tents with mortars or rockets over the past few months.

On Tuesday, before the hardened dining hall at Forward Operating Base Marez could be completed, a 122mm rocket slammed into a tent where hundreds of troops were sitting down to lunch.

Attacks from rockets or mortars - what the military calls "indirect fire" - have been commonplace at U.S. bases in the Mosul area as well as other insurgency hot spots in Iraq. Dining halls are a prime target because they offer a readily identifiable place where lots of troops congregate at predictable times.

For example, a mortar round hit near the mess hall of a U.S. base in Tikrit during dinner one night in March. The round didn't explode and no one was injured. Insurgents also launched rockets that month which exploded near a large military dining hall within Baghdad's Green Zone where U.S. and Iraqi government offices are located. Another mortar round injured three soldiers at a dining hall on another Baghdad base in February.




"It is extremely difficult to prevent these appalling and horrific attacks," said Wendy Hall, spokeswoman for Halliburton Co., the Army contractor that provides food services in Iraq. She said some Halliburton employees and subcontractors died in Tuesday's attack.

At many bases - including Marez - troops have been required to wear their body armor and helmets while in the dining hall because of the threat of attack. Most of the attacks don't hit any structures or cause any injuries, however.

The military was building a bunker-like mess hall at the Marez base to protect against such indirect fire attacks, Defense Department officials said. The new dining hall was part of continuing efforts to make the base safer, said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a spokesman for the U.S. military command in Mosul.

"There is a level of vulnerability when you go in there and you don't feel like there's a ... hard roof over your head," Hastings told CNN.

One soldier was killed near the dining hall at Marez in a mortar attack in May, and two soldiers were killed in November when mortars exploded in their living area on the same base.

Maj. John Nelson, the battalion's chief surgeon, told a reporter earlier this year about plans for a possible attack on the dining hall. Nelson told the Portland (Maine) Press Herald that military statistics showed that if a 60mm mortar shell hit the dining hall with 400 soldiers inside, an estimated 12 would die no matter what medics could do.

President Bush said Tuesday's deadly attack should not derail Iraqi elections scheduled for next month and that he hoped relatives of those killed would find solace in the service their loved ones provided.

"We just want them to know that the mission is a vital mission for peace," Bush told reporters after visiting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Hospital.

Bush said the violence, part of a continuing wave of unrest in Iraq, should not affect elections scheduled for Jan. 30.

"I'm confident democracy will prevail in Iraq," he said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, responding to a question about how Iraqis would be able to get to some 9,000 polling places for the elections if U.S. troops can't secure their own bases, said there was "security and peace" in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces.

"There are tough challenges that remain ... but we are making important progress on the ground," McClellan said. "We also have to keep in mind that the terrorists and Saddam loyalists have adapted and changed their tactics. We adapt and change with that as well to meet those ongoing security challenges."

Both American and Iraqi forces use the base that was attacked Tuesday. A surge in killings and other attacks in Mosul in recent weeks has targeted members of the Iraqi security forces in particular, with the bodies of many Iraqi soldiers found dumped in the streets as a warning to others.

Halliburton subsidiary KBR has gotten more than $8 billion worth of work supporting U.S. forces in Iraq, performing functions such as building and maintaining housing, washing clothes, delivering supplies and serving food. As on the base attacked Tuesday, KBR typically runs the mess halls in cavernous tents, which include cafeteria-style serving lines as well as tables piled with fresh fruit, soft drinks and pastries.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Fallujah -- Marines' classroom in urban war <br />
<br />
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - The brutish street war in Fallujah has been a baptism by fire for today's US marines, experiencing a relentless form of...

[thedrifter]

Bush: Attack Shouldn't Derail Elections
Associated Press
December 22, 2004

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Tuesday's deadly attack on a U.S. military base in Iraq should not derail elections scheduled for next month and he hoped relatives of those killed would find solace in the service their loved ones provided.

"We just want them to know that the mission is a vital mission for peace," Bush told reporters after visiting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Hospital.

The explosion that ripped through a dining tent at a U.S. military base in Mosul killed at least two dozen people, including U.S. soldiers. Seven of the dead worked for U.S. Army contractor Halliburton or its subcontractors, a company spokeswoman said.

More than 60 people were wounded. Reports on the cause of the explosion varied, with some blaming rockets or mortars fired into the base and others saying a bomb may have exploded inside the mess hall tent. Bush called it a "rocket attack."

Bush said the violence, part of a continuing wave of unrest in Iraq, should not affect elections scheduled for Jan. 30.




"I'm confident democracy will prevail in Iraq," he said.

The commander of the units involved said the dead and injured included U.S. and Iraqi troops, and civilian workers.

"It is indeed a very, very sad day," said Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia, in a brief, televised statement from Mosul. Task Force Olympia is the U.S. Army-led group overseeing American and Iraqi forces in and around Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, responding to a question about how Iraqis will be able to get to some 9,000 polling places for the elections if U.S. troops can't secure their own bases, said there was "security and peace" in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces.

"There are tough challenges that remain ... but we are making important progress on the ground," McClellan said. "We also have to keep in mind that the terrorists and Saddam loyalists have adapted and changed their tactics. We adapt and change with that as well to meet those ongoing security challenges."

Insurgent mortar attacks on U.S. bases, particularly on the huge white tents that serve as dining halls, have been frequent in Iraq for more than a year, however. Just last month, for example, two Task Force Olympia troops were killed in a mortar attack on a base in Mosul.

The attack occurred a day after Bush acknowledged that a wave of deadly attacks had raised questions among Americans about whether Iraqis will one day be able to take over from U.S. forces.

Both American and Iraqi forces use the base attacked Tuesday. A surge in killings and other attacks in Mosul in recent weeks has targeted members of the Iraqi security forces in particular, with the bodies of many Iraqi soldiers found dumped in the streets as a warning to others.

Halliburton subsidiary KBR has gotten more than $8 billion worth of work supporting U.S. forces in Iraq, performing functions such as building and maintaining housing, washing clothes, delivering supplies and serving food. As on the base attacked Tuesday, KBR typically builds cavernous tents to house the mess halls, which include cafeteria-style serving lines as well as tables piled with fresh fruit, soft drinks and pastries.

Four KBR employees and three workers for KBR subcontractors were killed in the attack, Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said.

Hall said the deaths bring to 62 the number of Halliburton workers or subcontractors killed in and around Iraq.

"These brutal attacks are unsettling, appalling and very sad for everyone," Hall said in a statement. "We are doing everything we can to assist the people on the ground."

The identities of the attackers were unknown, though a radical Muslim group later claimed responsibility.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Area Marines treated to day of golf
BY JESSICA FLATHMANN, The Island Packet
Published Wednesday, December 22nd, 2004


Retired U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Don Drobny looked on Tuesday morning as Staff Sgt. Isaac Ventura tried to hit a golf ball past the waterway on the second hole of the Arthur Hills Golf Course.
"You couldn't ask for a better day than to spend some time with Marines," Drobny said.


story continues below advertisement

Drobny was among about 20 people who volunteered to spend Tuesday teaching and playing golf with about two dozen Marines from Parris Island Marine Corps Recruit Depot.
For the Marines, like Ventura, it's a nice way to spend a day.

"It kind of makes you feel more appreciated," he said. "It just shows that there are people out there that appreciate what we do."

The event, in its first year, was coordinated by Doug Weaver, director of golf for Greenwood Development. Weaver said he got the idea after he spent Veterans Day in Washington and his pastor called for the members of his church to take in members of the military during the holiday season.

"The purpose of this is to say, 'Have a great day, a Merry Christmas, thank you very much,' " Weaver said.

The Marines received lessons on driving and putting before hitting the course. They also were treated to lunch at the clubhouse. Palmetto Dunes donated the course time and North Island Baptist Church on Hilton Head Island on paid for the lunch.

Weaver said the Marines were chosen because of the close relationship between the island church and the military base's chaplain.

Several golf pros and former pros donated their time to teach the Marines how to play better.

"Anytime we can give back with our skills we do," Jeff Snider, with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes of Hilton Head, said as he watched Sgt. Jimmy Buzo practice a new technique. Snider was teaching Buzo how to grip the club properly and swing with less effort.

"It's just back and through. It's an effortless power," Snider said as he watched Buzo hit the ball straight.

Some of the Marines, like Sgt. Tony Pontello, had never played golf. Others, like Lance Cpl. Josh Moody, hadn't played in several months and had never played on a course like the one in Palmetto Dunes.

"I never played one quite this nice," Moody said.

He said the instructors were trying to get him to break habits that weren't helping his golf game.

For many of the Marines, more than the learning about the game, Tuesday's event was about feeling valued.

"It means a lot," Moody said, "to know that people appreciate us like this."

Contact Jessica Flathmann at 706-8142 or jflathmann@islandpacket.com.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Desertion Charge Hearing Delayed <br />
The News and Observer <br />
December 22, 2004 <br />
<br />
CAMP LEJEUNE - A Marine charged with desertion after he disappeared from his unit in Iraq said Tuesday that he wants a...

[thedrifter]

America Supports You: USO Welcomes Soldiers to Dallas
By Spc. Matthew Chlosta, USA
Special to American Forces Press Service

GRAPEVINE, Texas, Dec. 21, 2004 -- During the holiday season "The Twelve Days of Christmas" plays repeatedly in homes, on radios and on stereos throughout America. At the new Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport United Service Organizations Center, they sing a slightly different tune.

On the first day of Christmas, donors gave to soldiers: nine free cell phones, dozens of free calling cards, seven computers with free high-speed wireless Internet access, seven recliners, five regular phone lines, one microwave, free Starbucks coffee, two huge flat widescreen televisions, free Xbox video game console, snacks, two free guitars, one foosball table -- and a partridge in a pear tree.

"We provide a warm, safe, happy place that will serve as a home away from home (for servicemembers)," Tiffany Sefton, programs manager for the USO at DFW Airport, said.

The space for the USO center was donated by the DFW Airport, with some of the start-up costs paid for by their board and other corporate sponsors.

A new 2,900-square-foot wonderland, the center also has a game loft, accessed by a twisty staircase above the coffee café next to the ice cream bar.

In the game loft, military members can enjoy Xbox games, foosball, chairs to lounge in, and plugs for laptops. They can also read a free newspaper or book, or use the computer workstations to surf the Internet and check e-mail.

Down on the center's main floor, servicemembers can take a nap in the darkened "sleep room" on one of the seven fully reclining loungers, watch a DVD in the movie room, or chill out and watch the news on the television over the ice cream bar, while enjoying free ice cream and free non-alcoholic drinks.

Troops pass through DFW Airport while traveling to and from the United States on daily military chartered flights from Kuwait. "We have served over 50,000 military members and their families since June 14," Sefton said.

"Because we're supporting the (rest and recuperation) program we're also making the USO Center available to well wishers, family members and friends of military members while they wait for the R&R flights to arrive," he said.

"It's great that they have it," said Army Maj. David Griffiths, a member of National Guard's 1st Battalion, 185th Armor Regiment, from San Bernardino, Calif.

"Soldiers can just relax and get back in the right frame of mind, whether you're coming or going," Griffiths said Dec. 14 while waiting for the daily flight back to Kuwait and then Iraq.

"I think it's fantastic," said Capt. Chris O'Malley, of the 1st Cavalry Division's 27th Main Support Battalion. "It gives people a last bit of R&R before going back, and you can't beat the free coffee."

Volunteers are the lifeblood of the USO, Sefton said. "USO is a volunteer-run organization," he said. "They are what make this such a neat place. They make it a homey place. They stand in for the family members away from home."

"The whole attitude is to make the soldiers as comfortable as possible," Marbrey Van Landingham, a USO volunteer, said. "I think they're fabulous. I feel like I have to do something to support our troops. Most haven't been to a USO before. They can't believe any of it, especially free cell phones. They always thank me for serving them. I'm always amazed by that because I get to go home (at the end of the day)."

"They made me feel real good, and they make you feel special," said Spc. Mitchell Kauley, a member of the 1st Infantry Division's 118th Infantry Regiment.

"One of the best I've ever seen," Lt. Col. Derek Smith, battalion commander of the 725th Main Support Battalion, of the 25th Infantry Division, said about the DFW Airport USO. "I definitely recommend it."

The USO is located in Terminal B at Gate B15 (secure side). The hours of the DFW Airport USO are 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. or until the departing R&R flight leaves in the evening.

Almost every morning there are troops arriving on early flights from Hawaii and other places waiting outside for us to open, Dee Neidenberger, a USO volunteer, said. "I just love saying goodbye to them, wishing them luck," she said. "I like helping them."

"The USO motto is, 'Until Everyone Comes Home,'" Sefton said. "The military members will always be out there defending our country during war and times of peace. So we're always going to be here."

(Army Spc. Matthew Chlosta is assigned to the 4th Public Affairs Detachment.)

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Iraq Faces Profound Shift in Power <br />
<br />
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer <br />
<br />
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites) in 2005 faces the likelihood of the most profound shift of political...

[thedrifter]

US soldiers in Iraq hit by rare, deadly pneumonia

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US troops in Iraq (news - web sites) have been hit at a higher than normal rate by a rare type of pneumonia that has left two soldiers dead, a study has found.


Acute eosinophilic pneumonia, a rare disease characterized by fever, respiratory failure and an infiltration of the lungs, has been diagnosed in 18 US soldiers in Iraq between March 2003 and March 2004, according to the study in the December 22-29 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (news - web sites).


Severe pneumonia was found among 19 US military personnel in March-April 2003, and 10 of them were diagnosed with the disease. Of the 10 patients, two died, according to the study.


Another eight patients were diagnosed with the disease through March 2004, the study says.


Doctor Andrew Shorr of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington led an epidemiologic investigation of cases of the disease among troops from March 2003 through March 2004.


The 18 cases were identified among 183,000 soldiers stationed in or near Iraq. The incidence rate was 9.1 cases per 100,000 people.


The disease can be confused with other types of pneumonia, the study says.


"Patients can present with (sudden and severe) respiratory failure or have less-severe forms of the disease, both of which can mimic community-acquired pneumonia," the authors wrote.


"Civilian and military physicians should both consider this diagnosis in military personnel presenting with respiratory complaints during, or after, a recent deployment or training exercise."


Most of the 18 patients, or 89 percent, were men and their median age was 22, the study says.


All patients consumed tobacco, a habit 78 percent of them had recently taken up. All except one soldier reported having been significantly exposed to fine airborne sand or dust.


The investigation failed to determine a common source for the exposure to the disease.


According to the study, 67 percent of the patients needed mechanical ventilation for between two and 16 days.


Two soldiers died and the others were treated with corticosteroids or supportive care.


Of 12 patients who were re-examined a few months after the diagnosis, three had mild difficulty breathing and one reported wheezing.


At the end of the treatment, the soldiers had normal or nearly normal respiratory test results.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

December 22, 2004

Troops sweep through Mosul in aftermath of chow hall attack

By Dusan Stojanovic
Associated Press


BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. troops backed by armored vehicles swept through virtually empty streets of Mosul amid an undeclared curfew in Iraq’s third largest city Wednesday, a day after an insurgent strike on a nearby base killed 22 people and wounded 72 in one of the deadliest attacks on American troops since the war began.
The military was investigating whether a bomb was planted at the mess tent in Forward Operating Base Marez, where the blast sprayed shrapnel as U.S. soldiers sat down to lunch Tuesday. Initial reports said a 122 mm rocket ripped through the tent’s ceiling.

Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, commander of the multinational force in Iraq, told CNN that a planted bomb was “a possibility.” A radical Sunni group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, said it carried out the attack and claimed it was a “martyrdom operation” — a reference to a suicide bomber.

The explosive was apparently packed with pellets the size of BBs that ripped acorss the tent when it exploded, Brig. Gen. Carter F. Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia — the main U.S. force in nothern Iraq — told Nemitz.

Mortars and rockets produce shrapnel but are not packed with pellets, which are often found in roadside bombs or explosives worn by suicide bombers.

The military was also looking at better ways of protecting places where U.S. troops regularly gather on their bases, such as dining areas and gyms — areas that are frequently targeted by mortars, though usually with little accuracy. Bill Nemitz, a columnist with the Portland (Maine) Press Herald who was embedded with the troops at Marez, told CNN that he heard “a lot of discussion” among troops about the vulnerability of the tent.

About 50 people — most of them injured soldiers from Mosul — arrived on an Air Force C-141 transport plane at Ramstein Air Base in Germany for treatment at nearby Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, said Maj. Mike Young, a base spokesman.

The hospital was expected at least eight who were in critical condition, Landstuhl spokeswoman Marie Shaw said. With a light snow falling, some wounded were carried out on stretchers, while about a dozen were expected to be well enough to walk off the plane.

An Associated Press reporter saw almost no cars or people on the streets of Mosul Wednesday and most schools in the city were closed, although a formal curfew was not declared. Even traffic policemen were not at major intersections as usual.

U.S. forces blocked Mosul’s five bridges over the Tigris River that link the western and eastern sectors of the city, while hundreds of troops spread out across several neighborhoods, conducting sweeps in eastern districts backed by Bradley fighting vehicles and armored Humvees. The AP reporter saw helicopter gunships clattering overhead and jets flying high above the city.

Mosul, located 225 miles north of Baghdad, was relatively peaceful in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime last year. But it has become a hotspot for insurgent violence ever since U.S.-Iraqi forces invaded the main guerrilla stronghold of Fallujah last month.

Metz told CNN that experts had flown from Baghdad to Mosul to “do a very detailed explosive forensics investigation and they will be able to tell us the type of weapon” used in Tuesday’s blast.

The blast came as the military had nearly finished building a reinforced, bunker-like dining area at the camp to increase protection against mortar and rocket attacks, Metz said. The new facility was due to be completed in February, he said.

“We recognized the threat,” Metz said Wednesday on CBS’ “The Early Show.”

Metz told CNN that previous rocket and mortar attacks on Marez were “rather random.”

“The enemy cannot stay in one place long to attack us, therefore his accuracy is pretty poor,” he said.

The dead included 18 Americans — 14 service members and four U.S. civilian contractors — and four Iraqis, the U.S. military command in Baghdad said Wednesday. Of the 72 wounded, 51 are U.S. military personnel and the remainder are American civilians, Iraqi troops, and other foreigners.

Defense contractor Halliburton Co. said four of its employees. It had initially said three subcontractors were also killed, but it later reported that they had survived. It did not give the nationalities of the dead. Sixteen other Halliburton workers, including 12 subcontractors, were seriously injured from the blast, the company said.

At the military hospital near Mosul airfield, doctors and orderlies treated dozens of soldiers for burns, shrapnel wounds and damage to their eyes.

“This is the worst we have seen in the 11 months since we have been here,” said Master Sgt. David Scott, chief ward master for the hospital.

Sgt. Kyle Wright of Richlands, Va., recovering from wounds to his leg and back, said he was in the tent about to take a bite of chocolate cake when he was blown into the air.

“When I came to, I looked up and saw open sky,” Wright, a member of the 276th Engineer Battalion, told Jeremy Redmon, an embedded reporter from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

It was the latest in a week of deadly strikes across Iraq that highlighted the growing power of the insurgents in the run-up to the Jan. 30 national elections.

“We are not going to be intimidated. We will help the Iraqi people and their security forces not to be intimidated and we are pushing on toward the elections in January,” Metz said.

There was little apparent sympathy for the dead Americans on the streets of Mosul, particularly among its large population of Sunni Arabs. The city also is home to a Kurdish minority whose two main political parties are U.S. allies.

“When occupiers come to any country (they) find resistance. And this is within Iraqi resistance,” Sattar Jabbar said of the attack.

“I prefer that American troops leave the country and go out of cities so that Iraq will be safer and we run its affairs,” Jamal Mahmoud, a trade union official. “I wish that 2,000 U.S. soldiers were killed, not 20.”

In other developments Wednesday:

Poland’s Prime Minister Marek Belka and Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski toured Camp Echo in Diwaniyah, the new headquarters for the Polish-led international security force in central Iraq, for a Christmas visit to some 2,400 Polish troops stationed in Iraq.

Four Iraqi civilians from one family were killed and three others wounded when U.S. soldiers opened fire on their car in the Abu Ghraib area just west of Baghdad, said Akram al-Zaobaie, a doctor in the local hospital. The soldier started firing after a bomb hit a U.S. convoy, he said.

Iraqi security forces stormed a house in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf in a shootout that killed one guerrilla and a policeman. The raid came after 54 people were killed and 142 injured in a car bomb explosion Sunday in Najaf’s city center.



Ellie

[thedrifter]

December 22, 2004

Fallujah still lacks clean water

By Rawya Rageh
Associated Press


BAGHDAD, Iraq — Water purification plants in Fallujah remain out of use after last month’s U.S.-led offensive that left the city in ruins, and any displaced families that return will depend on mobile tanks, a Red Cross spokesman said Wednesday.
Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross said they visited Fallujah for the second time Tuesday to assess the humanitarian situation there. Their first entry to the devastated city was on Dec. 7.

The director of the Fallujah water board told the six-member, all-Iraqi team that none of the four water treatment plants in the city are operational, said Ahmed Rawi, an ICRC spokesman.

“Most of them have been bombed or damaged because of the military operations,” Rawi said. “In the future, when the people return they will be served by mobile tanks that are placed in several areas in the city.”

Last week, Iraq’s interim Cabinet announced that residents of Fallujah who were displaced by November’s bloody U.S.-led campaign to retake the city from rebels, will start returning to their homes. Most of Fallujah’s 300,000 inhabitants fled the city ahead of the campaign to uproot insurgents based there.

According to Iraqi statistics, 210,600 people fled Fallujah when the invasion began on Nov. 8. At least 120,000 of them are in the nearby town of Amiriyah, while about 35,000 went to Baghdad.

The first batch of Fallujah’s displaced, a group of 2000, are scheduled to return to their homes in the city’s western neighborhood of Andalus Thursday, Minister of Industry Hajim al-Hassani told reporters Wednesday.

“We are distributing leaflets, posters and announcing through the media about the return,” he said.

Al-Hassani, however, conceded that there are hindrances hampering reconstruction efforts.

“There are still obstacles facing government teams working in Fallujah ... operations are still limited because there remains pockets that cause trouble every now and then, which obstructs the pace of reconstruction in the city,” he said.

ICRC’s Rawi noted that most sewage pumps are now working in the city. The ICRC had provided sewage technicians in Fallujah with equipment they have requested after the first visit on Dec. 7.

In the first visit, Red Cross officials did not inspect a potato warehouse where the U.S. military says bodies of insurgents were sent to be prepared for burial. The ICRC had been wanting to inspect the site to verify the death toll.

The U.S. military claimed that 1,200 insurgents died in the fighting. No civilian casualty figures have been released.

On Tuesday, the group visited the former potato chip factory on the outskirts of the city.

“We were told by the American army the warehouse is now empty. We headed there ... (and) the store was truly empty,” Rawi said. “We saw many rooms with traces of blood and the odor indicated that the place housed bodies.”

It was not immediately clear where the bodies were buried and the ICRC said it is following up on the issue.

Separately, the ICRC dispatched a truck with 1.5 tons of medical supplies to the Najaf health directorate after the Sunday attack on a funeral procession there that killed and injured scores. Health officials had requested the assistance and the supplies were mainly sent to the Najaf General Hospital.

Rawi said Najaf health officials are now putting the casualty toll at 53 dead and 114 injured.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Battle-damaged Fallujah awaits the return of evacuees

By Aamer Madhani Tribune staff reporter

The interim Iraqi government said Monday that it would allow residents of this decimated city to begin returning to their homes this week, more than a month after the start of the U.S.-led offensive to clear out Iraq (news - web sites)'s most notorious insurgent stronghold.


Significant amounts of rubble have been cleared away, but the city remains a shambles and many homes are in ruins or flattened, according to U.S. Marine commanders and a State Department representative in Fallujah.


Still, commanding officers with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Fallujah said it is important to get anxious residents back into the city so they can assess the damage to their homes.


Starting with a district in western Fallujah on Thursday, about 2,000 displaced families will make up the first wave of returning residents. Each family will receive about $100 to immediately assist them, according to the plan announced by Iraq's minister of industry, Hajem al-Hassani.


Compensation plan


The interim government said in a statement that it would begin assessing damage to homes and would pay homeowners $2,000 to $10,000 for damages from the fighting. The government also announced it would replace homes destroyed in the offensive.


Residents from other neighborhoods are expected to be gradually allowed into the city over the next two to three weeks. Most of the 250,000 residents could be back in time for national elections set for Jan. 30.


Successful elections in Fallujah and the rest of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province are considered a crucial step in ensuring that the results are seen as legitimate.


The Iraqi Electoral Commission has begun considering alternatives to ensure proper representation in the new government if there is low voter turnout throughout the province, said John Kael Weston, the State Department's representative in Fallujah.


But the elections were not a prime concern in deciding when to return Fallujah's residents, said Col. John Ballard, commander of the 4th Civil Affairs Group, the Washington-based Marine Reserve unit overseeing the reconstruction.


"My whole goal was not time based," Ballard said. "My whole goal was to do a thorough job."


At the behest of the interim government, U.S. Marines called on residents to evacuate before last month's operation to rid Fallujah of insurgents who have effectively controlled the restive city for much of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. At least 50 Marines, eight members of the Iraqi security forces and 1,200 insurgents were killed in eight days of fighting that started Nov. 8.


Fighting in the mostly deserted city has subsided in recent days, but the return of residents was delayed by pockets of insurgents that continue to plague U.S. and Iraqi forces.


Just last week, seven Marines, including six from one company, were killed in clashes in the city. The U.S. troops have remained on heightened alert in the initial stages of reconstruction and are still officially in a combat phase.


The Marines have found 728 improvised explosive devices and 221 ammunition caches since the beginning of the operation, said Col. Mike Shupp, regimental commander of the U.S. combat forces in Fallujah.


Cleanup efforts begin


More than 200 Iraqi contract workers in yellow hardhats were on the streets Monday assisting Marines and Navy Seabees in clearing rubble and pumping standing water from the streets. Along the main thoroughfare of the central business district, nearly every store appears damaged by the fighting and tangles of power lines hang precariously low.





The city's skyline of squat apartment buildings and soaring mosques is marked by caved-in homes and crumbling minarets, evidence of some of the heaviest fighting since the invasion in March 2003.

Ballard said the Marines are ready to help supply food, water and shelter. Humanitarian aid stations to distribute food and water will be opened throughout the city.

The living conditions, however, will be far from ideal. Electricity is limited to hospitals, but the Iraqi government will provide some generators for basic needs. Residents will not have running water.

On Monday, several mid- and high-level officials from Iraqi ministries were flown by U.S. military helicopters from Baghdad to meet with Marine commanders and city service experts to discuss the return of residents and rebuilding plans.

They drew up security plans and debated the amount of plastic sheeting, tents and liters of water that needed to be in place before residents began returning Thursday.

For weeks, Marine commanders have been making plans to allow residents back while blocking insurgents from sneaking into Fallujah. The city will remain under curfew, possession of weapons will be prohibited, except by security forces, and residents will have to wear identification indicating who they are and where they live.

The Marines also devised a busing system to prevent car bombings by prohibiting civilian vehicles from entering the city. However, it was doubtful Monday that those arrangements would be used.

Brig. Gen. Dennis Hejlik of the Marine unit in Fallujah said that the "risk would be huge" if vehicles were immediately allowed to enter the city, but that the Marines would acquiesce to the Iraqi government's wishes.

"We'll do what the Iraqi government wants us to do, and we'll do it with a smile," he said.


Ellie

[greensideout]

Originally posted by thedrifter
Deadliest Single Attack Kills 22
Associated Press
December 22, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A 122 mm rocket slammed into a mess tent Tuesday at a military base near the northern city of Mosul, ripping through the ceiling and spraying shrapnel as U.S. soldiers sat down to lunch.

Mortar attacks on U.S. bases, particularly on the huge white tents that serve as dining halls, have been frequent in Iraq for more than a year.

Ellie


HUGE WHITE TENTS!!!

Some get upset with others questioning the military leadership. Maybe we don't question them enough.

A huge white tent. Troops gathered here in mass for chow. The big white one, that's your target. What a message to seen out.

Maybe the military leadership could rack their brain and come up with something better. Good grief!

HUGE WHITE TENTS FOR MORE THEN A YEAR????

[vfm]

The updated report today was that this was not an incomming 120mm rocket but a lone suicide bomber who has been working at this installation for 3 months. I Guess it doesn't matter what color the mess tents are when this happens. This guy didn't even have a gun just a knapsack. I wonder if any imbedded reporter made note of that point.
SEMPER FI!!!
vfm

[thedrifter]

Mosul wounded begin arriving at Ramstein

Associated Press

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — A group of soldiers wounded in a deadly insurgent attack on a base in northern Iraq arrived at an American air base in Germany on Wednesday for treatment at a military hospital.
A C-141 transport plane carrying some 50 patients — most of them wounded in Tuesday’s attack in Mosul — touched down in a light snow at about 4 p.m. at the Ramstein Air Base after a flight from Balad, north of Baghdad. The first of the injured were taken off the plane on stretchers.

“They’re not perhaps critical, but they need to be on a litter” for transfer to nearby Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, said Ramstein spokesman Maj. Mike Young. He said about a dozen were well enough to walk off the plane.

Tuesday’s attack on a base in Mosul killed 22 people and injured 72. Fifty-one of the injured are U.S. military personnel, the U.S. military command in Baghdad said.

The hospital was expecting at least eight critical care patients from the group that arrived Wednesday, Landstuhl spokeswoman Marie Shaw said.

Landstuhl was gearing up to treat the victims, most of whom were suffering from broken bones and shrapnel wounds.

“We have to see what we need,” Shaw said.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

More signs of Syria turn up in Iraq <br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
By Nicholas Blanford <br />
Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor <br />
Dec. 22,...

[thedrifter]

Civilians Fill in for Marines on Toy Drive
Wednesday December 22, 2004 10:31 PM
By DON BABWIN
Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO (AP) - Civilian volunteers have rushed in to help run the Marine Corps' annual Toys for Tots drive because the soldiers have their hands full in Iraq, making sure tens of thousands of gifts reach children around the country in time for Christmas.

Sgt. Rita O'Reilly said there were only about 28 Marines and reservists available to help sort the small mountains of toys that began accumulating at a Marine training center; about 400 were available last year.

When the public learned of the manpower shortage, the flood of calls began.

``They were pouring in so much they filled up our voice mail,'' said O'Reilly, a reservist with the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment in Chicago. ``We wouldn't have succeeded without them.''

Today, toys coming into the training center get sorted and sent with the help of a collection of volunteers - ranging from a 22-year-old woman with a stud in her tongue to a 63-year-old retiree who left the Marines years ago.

``It makes me feel good doing something like this,'' said Tiffany Allendorfer of Lombard, who spent her day off from work to volunteer.

``These toys have to be passed on,'' said Denny Dobrowolski of Morton Grove, who was in his fourth day of sifting through Tonka Trucks, Spider Man action figures and toy tool sets, as his wife, Mary, did the same nearby. ``Somebody has to do it.''

Around the country, the Marines are getting the toys out even as their ranks have been depleted by deployments to Iraq.

``We were genuinely surprised and pleased that so many wives of Marines over there (in Iraq) stepped in, former Marines and people that love children have stepped in,'' said Bill Grein, vice president for marketing and development for the Toys for Tots Foundation in Quantico, Va.

Major Tom Nelson, the national Toys for Tots coordinator, said he doesn't know how many volunteers have helped out around the nation, where there are 480 Toys for Tots sites, 179 of which are run by Marine units.

But they are out there, he said.

``Marines always find a way to accomplish the mission and we will again, especially with the help of all the civilian volunteers,'' he said.

In Chicago, O'Reilly said she believes when all the toys are counted, their number will top the 150,000 collected and distributed last year.

``It's awesome, it is so awesome,'' said Jen Doty, who was being helped by her 3-year-old daughter, Emily. ``It makes the Marines happy knowing that people are stepping up when they're away.''

She said her husband, Shawn, a sergeant in the reserves who is now in Iraq ``has been here every year and I said, you know what, I've got to step up to the plate.''


Ellie

[thedrifter]

US military fan markets patriotic cookies to support troops
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. National - AFP

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - An entrepreneur is producing a unique line of official armed forces cookies bearing the edible emblems of the US military in a gesture of support to American forces in Iraq, he said.

Businessman and military fan Cliff Smith, 45, from the California city of San Diego says he was galvanized into entering the biscuit business by the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on US soil.

He has invested more than 150,000 dollars of his own money in the scheme to make treats, emblazoned with the emblems of all branches of the US armed forces, for which has won the blessing of military brass.

"I'm just a private citizen who decided to do this as a way of supporting the men and women who are fighting for us," said Smith, who is founder and president of the Cookie Club of America Inc.

"I did this because my family has a long history of military service and I knew that the war that we are now facing was not going to be an easy one," he told AFP.

The special Stampers biscuits, featuring emblems the US Army, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and National Guard as well as US flags and images of the Statue of Liberty, hit US supermarket shelves last month and will soon be wining their way to US forces in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq, Smith says.

Smith, a former restaurant and hotel manager, won the permission of the Pentagon to reproduce the military emblems in sugar in early 2003, just as the US invasion of Iraq got underway.

Five percent of the proceeds of the cookie sales will go to the non-profit National Military Family Association, which looks after military families.

"The great thing about cookies is that you keep on buying them so they keep on making money," Smith said.

Web site: www.cookieclubofamerica.com/


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marine heading to Iraq will make it to the clerk on time <br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
By PETER MALLER <br />
pmaller@journalsentinel.com <br />
Posted: Dec....

[greensideout]

Originally posted by greensideout



HUGE WHITE TENTS!!!

Some get upset with others questioning the military leadership. Maybe we don't question them enough.

A huge white tent. Troops gathered here in mass for chow. The big white one, that's your target. What a message to seen out.

Maybe the military leadership could rack their brain and come up with something better. Good grief!

HUGE WHITE TENTS FOR MORE THEN A YEAR????


Bump to the top---let's talk about it.

[thedrifter]

Grim Realities in Iraq
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial
The New York Times
Dec. 22, 2004

his has been a devastating week in Iraq and it's still only Wednesday.

Yesterday, an explosion ripped through a dining tent at lunch hour on an American military base near Mosul, killing at least 24 people and injuring 57. The day before, President Bush finally acknowledged that many of the more than 100,000 Iraqi trainees Washington had been counting on to take over basic security tasks were far from being up to the job. And on Sunday, car-bomb attacks killed more than 60 people in the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, while in Baghdad, unmasked assassins brazenly dragged three election officials out of their cars in full daylight and executed them on the spot.

This is not just pre-election mayhem. It is stark evidence that with a crucial election now less than six weeks away, America's effort to bring into being a new Iraqi government representing all major population groups and capable of defending itself and its citizens still has a very long way to go. Some 21 months after the American invasion, United States military forces remain essentially alone in battling what seems to be a growing insurgency, with no clear prospect of decisive success any time in the foreseeable future.

Washington has no significant international military partners besides Britain, and no Iraqi military support it can count on. The election that once looked as if it might produce a government with nationwide legitimacy increasingly threatens to intensify divisions between the groups that are expected to participate enthusiastically - the Shiites and Kurds - and an estranged and embattled Sunni community, which at this point appears likely to stand aloof.

There may still be time for Washington to try to salvage the election, but that would require paying much more serious attention to legitimate Sunni grievances and showing an openness to postponing the election for several months, if that had a reasonable chance of attracting broader Sunni participation. So far, Mr. Bush has strongly resisted such an approach. As weeks go by without discernible progress, hopes for a decent outcome get progressively harder to sustain.

Right now, the only progress seems to lie in the willingness of the re-elected President Bush to face some hard truths:

One certainly involves Iraqi security forces, which have always been presented as the key to American withdrawal. For more than a year, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials had been claiming that many tens of thousands of Iraqis were being trained to take over frontline security duties, allowing American forces first to pull back from major cities and then, at a later phase, come home. Last week, at a meeting with America's two top military commanders responsible for Iraq, Mr. Bush got a candid evaluation of the actual combat readiness of these Iraqi trainees, who now officially number about 114,000. Mr. Bush was admirably blunt about it at his news conference on Monday, noting that while a few good generals and some good foot soldiers had been trained, "the whole command structure necessary to have a viable military is not in place."

We are glad to hear Mr. Bush acknowledge this sobering reality, but we are still waiting for him to explain who will have to fill in for these noncombat-ready Iraqis and for how long. Given the lack of other countries willing to put up their hands as volunteers, the only answer seems to be more American troops, and not just through the spring, as currently planned. Since the first days of the occupation, American troops have been too light on the ground in Iraq, allowing the looting and sabotage that soon turned into insurgency to get a costly head start.

And facing the need for an expanded American military presence means more than a simple reshuffling of deployments. If more troops in Iraq are not going to translate into a dangerously exhausted and overstretched Army, Marine Corps and National Guard, these forces need to be expanded through stepped-up recruitment. That means bigger spending on the least politically attractive part of the military budget, basic personnel salaries, and less for costly new weapons systems.

Another harsh reality that needs to be confronted head-on is the prospect for the Iraqi elections. The Jan. 30 elections were supposed to usher in a legitimate national government and a broadly representative assembly to draw up a constitution acceptable to all elements of Iraq's fragmented population - secular and religious, Shiite and Sunni, Arab and Kurd. But things now appear headed toward a badly skewed result. Enthusiasm and participation seem high among Shiites and Kurds, who suffered greatly under Sunni minority rule and now thirst for self-government. But in predominantly Sunni areas, including Mosul, parts of Baghdad and most of central and western Iraq, there is a deep and growing alienation that threatens to depress electoral turnout and provides a large reservoir of support for the insurgency. Without an acceptable level of participation across Iraq, the elections will not be able to produce a legitimate government capable of standing on its own, mastering the insurgency and surviving without the indefinite presence of large numbers of American troops.

The timing of last month's military assault on Falluja rested, in part, on the argument that Iraq's Sunnis really wanted to participate in the election, but were being held back by intimidation from the insurgents. The causes of Sunni alienation from the current political process actually run far deeper, and affect large numbers of people who cannot be classified as Al Qaeda supporters, Islamic fundamentalists or sworn followers of Saddam Hussein. A broader feeling has begun to take root that Sunnis have no political, professional or personal future in the new Iraq being shaped by Washington and its Shiite and Kurdish allies.

This feeling grew out of such earlier American mistakes as the wholesale dismissal of the old, Sunni-led Iraqi national army and the blanket exclusion of even midlevel former Baathists from government jobs during the early months of the occupation. It has fed off the continuing failure to assure that authentic Sunni nationalist politicians had an adequate voice in the interim government and election preparations. A further level of resentment has been added by the physical destruction of homes, jobs and infrastructure produced by American counterinsurgency campaigns in densely populated Sunni towns like Falluja. A coalition of Sunni political leaders led by Adnan Pachachi, a respected moderate, has repeatedly called for postponing the January election for several months to encourage broader Sunni participation. His pleas need to be taken seriously, not brushed aside as they have been up till now by Baghdad and Washington.

Leaving Iraq's Sunnis in such a sullen, resentful mood would undermine the creation of a new and stable Iraq and poison its relations with the rest of the Arab world, where Sunnis strongly predominate. Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, somehow seems unable to recognize this. Instead of reinforcing him in his folly, the Bush administration should be actively encouraging him to think afresh. If postponing the election date can ensure more adequate Sunni participation, it is in everyone's interest to do so.

Ellie

[greensideout]

Originally posted by vfm
The updated report today was that this was not an incomming 120mm rocket but a lone suicide bomber who has been working at this installation for 3 months. I Guess it doesn't matter what color the mess tents are when this happens. This guy didn't even have a gun just a knapsack. I wonder if any imbedded reporter made note of that point.
SEMPER FI!!!
vfm

The war there is more like nam then I like to think.

This is like when LBJ started the Vietnam war.

What can we do wrong, considering what we have learned from the past? History has said we will fail. Let's do it.

58,000 + in Nam. No Vietnam freedom!

1200 + and growing. What will Iraq gain? I believe nothing.

God bless our troops, they will do their job and do it well.

But when the dust settles, what is the gain?

[Sgted]

Sadly, more & more I agree with greensideout.
They say after the elections things should improve. In the same news report (CNN) there was a report of concern on how to keep the lines short at polling places election day to ward off long lines of voters getting killed.
The suicide bomber probably went to great lengths to earn the trust of the military folks there. (I'd hate to think he "sneaked" onto the base and into the mess hall unchallenged).
I personally dread the news each day anticiapating more of these types of stories out of Iraq.

[thedrifter]

December 27, 2004

More to the story
As new prisoner abuse cases are revealed, the Corps says it’s punishing guilty Marines

By Gordon Lubold
Times staff writer


One Marine beat Iraqi detainees with his fists. Others may have sprayed Iraqi looters with a fire extinguisher. And in one instance, a Marine lit a match that ignited a puddle of alcohol-based hand sanitizer that burned a detainee’s hands.
Marine Corps documents made public Dec. 14 show several cases of abuse of detainees by Marines since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, many of them previously unreported. Corps officials said Dec. 16 that a total of 31 Marines have been investigated for alleged detainee abuse in Iraq or Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001. Of those, 14 Marines went to court-martial and nine more were punished administratively. Investigations into nine more incidents are pending, said Maj. Nat Fahy, a spokesman for the Corps at the Pentagon.

Although some of these cases had been announced by Corps officials and courts-martial were covered by the press, the newly released documents shed light on other unreported cases that showed more widespread abuse of prisoners by Marines than was previously thought.

The incidents came to light after a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups forced officials to release the information.

The incidents range from low-level abuse to more serious actions. For example, one Marine was photographed holding a 9mm pistol to the head of a bound detainee near Karbala, Iraq, in May 2003. Later, another Marine poured water over the detainee’s flag-draped head. One Marine connected to the incident received 90 days confinement, forfeiture of pay and reduction in rank to private.

Earlier this year, another Marine was sent to the brig for three months for an incident that took place near Mumudiyah, Iraq, in 2003, in which the Marine threw a lit match on a puddle of alcohol-based hand sanitizer that ignited the sanitizer on a detainee’s hands. In other incidents, Marines pounded detainees with their fists, threw detainees’ faces in the dirt or made them sit still in a kneeling position for hours on end.

The nine active investigations mostly pertain to accusations by detainees that Marines or Marine contractors physically abused them. None of these allegations has been substantiated, and Marines are not the subjects in all the cases, Fahy said.

Some incidents detailed in the report already have been widely reported. This spring, for example, two Marines were found guilty in connection with an April 2004 incident in which an electric transformer was used to shock an Iraqi detainee who reportedly “danced” as he was shocked, according to the documents.

The report tabulating the abuses came to light after a federal court ordered the Defense Department to respond to information requested by the ACLU. After receiving the documents from the Marine Corps, the ACLU released them to the public Dec. 14. Many of the investigations detailed in the report had been completed quietly with no public announcements.

The ACLU and other organizations with which it is allied contend there was “an internal culture of secrecy” in the Corps, according to one ACLU attorney, that was meant to intimidate anyone who expressed concerns about detainee treatment.

ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer said his organization is mainly focused on how this was allowed to happen, not on individual cases of abuse.

“We’re most interested in the policies that were put in place by the leadership that may have encouraged or endorsed abuse,” he said in an interview.

Jaffer said results from a separate request to discover abuses at the hands of soldiers under the Army’s command are forthcoming.

Corps officials said the fact that the ACLU report presented all the incidents of abuse at once suggests a larger problem than actually exists. Each case of detainee abuse is unacceptable, Fahy said, but in each case in which claims were substantiated, the Marines guilty of abuse were punished, he said.

“These acts referred to by the ACLU that resulted in courts-martial clearly demonstrate our commitment to thoroughly investigate all allegations of detainee abuse and hold people accountable for criminal actions or inappropriate behavior.”

Most Marines treat detainees with respect and dignity, he said.

According to the ACLU documents, a Navy corpsman interviewed by investigators described a “regular process” by which Iraqis classified as prisoners of war would be taken to an empty swimming pool, hand- and leg-cuffed, put in a kneeling position, covered with burlap bags, and told to wait for as much as 24 hours before they were interrogated.

The report said that, as of Aug. 5, there were a total of 10 substantiated incidents, all stemming from operations conducted by 1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton, Calif., and all in Iraq. But citing more recent data, Corps officials said a total of 13 substantiated cases resulted in 14 separate courts-martial, Fahy said.

Of those 14 courts-martial, four Marines went to general courts-martial, seven had special courts-martial and three attended summary courts-martial. Corps officials said they did not have information on how each court-martial was adjudicated, but documents show that Marines involved in those incidents were punished with hard labor, reduction in rank and as much as one year in the brig.

Most of the incidents occurred during or immediately after the spring 2003 invasion of Iraq, suggesting that the additional training that took place before Marines returned to Iraq in 2004 had an effect.

Marines had detainee-handling training at March Air Reserve Base, Calif., in fall 2003 and early 2004.

“I can say without question that our training as far as detainee handling is concerned is working,” Fahy said.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

December 27, 2004

Retired father to join officer son
Vietnam veteran asked for Iraq tour

By Christian Lowe
Times staff writer


When he stood for the photo in a bombed-out building in Baghdad last year, Maj. Christopher Phelps never knew that what he’d written to his father on the torn-up MRE box would actually come true.
And it wasn’t for lack of trying, either.

Since 2001, Phelps’ father, Kendall, had been trying to deploy to Iraq, putting his name on a list of volunteers for two Reserve civil affairs groups that needed Marines to fill out their ranks. The 57-year-old retired Marine had the needed skills — a master’s degree in education and years as a school teacher in Kansas — but for some reason, he wasn’t picked.

Until now.

Come February, Kendall Phelps, who spent his 20th birthday in the rice paddies of the Demilitarized Zone in Vietnam back in 1967, will be joining his son for a deployment to Iraq — as part of a newly-formed 5th Civil Affairs Group.

That group’s to be manned by a hodgepodge of Marines, including a handful of retirees, Iraq war vets and reservists from far-flung units who just want to help.

“When I left the Marine Corps, my wife joked that there were claw marks on the door,” Kendall Phelps remembered of his 1999 retirement after nearly 30 years in the Corps.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, “I called everybody I’d ever known to get back in.”

Despite the danger posed by a seven-month hitch to Iraq and the physical predations of pre-deployment training, the elder Phelps is confident he can meet the challenge — if not by strength, by guile.

“I’ve always told people if I have to go more than a half a mile anywhere I take my car,” the former master gunnery sergeant said in a Dec. 16 telephone interview from his home in Topeka, Kan.

“But I won’t let my son beat me” during training, the music director for the Silver Lake, Kan., public schools added with a chuckle. “I’ll just cheat.”

Strictly professional — sort of

Meanwhile, Christopher Phelps is proud to have his dad join him in Iraq, and he’s not nervous about clouding their close personal relationship with the rigid rules that dictate the responsibilities of a senior enlisted Marine and a superior officer.

It’s still unclear what jobs each will have, but both know they’ll have to keep things professional.

Well, sort of.

One of Kendall’s long-time Marine buddies, Myral Schmit — one of eight friends who joined the Corps with the elder Phelps in 1966 — wrote Christopher an e-mail with a special request.

He asked that Christopher order his father to clean the out-house toilets on base at least once — which includes setting a 50-gallon drum full of waste on fire — and take a picture to record the ignominious event.

“I will guarantee you I’ll have him burn [the barrel] and take a picture of it,” Christopher told Schmit.

Ellie

[snipowsky]

Just like GSO says... What will we gain? We need to pull out before a huge civil war erupts and we are caught in the middle. Bush is nuts if he thinks these elections are going to happen without problems. The Iraqi civilians will be to scared to get out and vote.

Even though these soldiers aren't Marines I was still saddened and very ****ed off that something like this can even happen!

Did we not learn from Vietnam? What are we doing letting "Iraqi civilians" work in our military bases? That's totally unexcusable and just asking for problems like what happened. Of course these insurgents will take advantage of a stupid idea like this. If we are to think like the enemy would, why wouldn't you consider exposing this weakness in our defense. Makes perfect sense.

God bless those soldiers and their families. :mad:

[vfm]

After these elections an Iraqui state will be started however ,I feel it will be no more stable than Israel. These people have been killing each other since the beginning of time and will continue to do so until the end of time.
The best we can expect is that the Iraqui people will be able to stand on their own and defend themselves.
SEMPER FI!!!
vfm

[thedrifter]

National Guard unit says training was poor <br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
By Scott Gold <br />
LA Times Staff Writer <br />
December 23, 2004 <br />
<br />
HOUSTON -...

[thedrifter]

Soldier's Heart <br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
By Dan Frosch <br />
Dec. 23, 2004 <br />
<br />
The first time Kristin Peterson's husband hit her, she was asleep...

[thedrifter]

His girlfriend, Teresa A. McKay, noticed that Durman, once confident and kind, now broke into random sweats and angered easily. He drank too much whiskey and bought a .357 pistol. Their sex life,...

[thedrifter]

In 1968, a young soldier named Lewis Puller came back from Vietnam without his legs and parts of his hands, blown off by a Viet Cong land mine. Puller, the son of the most decorated Marine in American history, soon became a veterans' rights advocate and later a Pentagon lawyer. He married a politician, had two children and, in 1991, wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book called, Fortunate Son: The Healing of a Vietnam Vet. Popular on Capitol Hill and among veterans, Puller had seemingly risen from the physical wounds and the depression and alcoholism which haunted him for years to live a remarkable life.

On May 11, 1994, 26 years after returning home, Puller shot himself. In the end, the Soldier's Heart hurt too much.

Amidst an outpouring of grief, one Vietnam vet wrote an e-mail to Jonathan Shay, which Shay published in Odysseus In America.

"I get real tired of hidin' and runnin' from the demons," the vet wrote. "Am I the only one? Has it crossed anyone else's mind? You think maybe Lew was right? Is it the only real escape? I got questions. I'm out of answers."

Thirty years from now, one wonders how many veterans from this war will echo those words.

---Author Dan Frosch is a former staff writer for The Santa Fe Reporter and currently a New York-based free-lance writer for The Nation, In These Times and other publications. Barbara Solow with the Independent Weekly in Durham, N.C., contributed reporting to this story.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Merry Christmas and Thank You to Our Troops in Harm’s Way
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 23, 2004
by Sher Zieve

As I sit typing this with a cup of steaming Hazelnut coffee in front of me, a crackling fire in the fireplace and snow on the ground outside, reminders of those who have allowed this enjoyment of my morning fill me. The young men and women fighting and dying in the current war for civilization are keeping the battles over there, so that I can take pleasure in peacefully waking up ‘over here’. These courageous individuals have chosen to fight and, if necessary, die so that our country, its people and our way of life can and will survive; so that I can live. It’s very personal.

I would like to thank each and every one of you for keeping me safe, as I awaken in my warm bed to a wonderfully snowy morning, while you question whether or not you will be alive tomorrow. I thank you for allowing me to happily deliver presents and my love to family and friends, while your own loved ones are far away. I thank you for taking my fear and experiencing it as your own. However, there are not thanks enough to give to you incomparable warriors who fight on the grounds of distant and treacherous lands, so that I will be safe at home. You are the true protectors of our liberty. You are the ones to be lauded, with every word of praise known to mankind. You daily place your lives in jeopardy, so that I and the rest of us won’t have to.

Please know that as I and my loved ones enjoy Christmas dinner, you will all be in our prayers. And we will pray for your safe return to your own families. Thank you for your sacrifice and bravery and please know that you are a special group and the true elites in our society. You are the ones who fight to defend us all.

Merry Christmas to all of you and may God bless you…each and every one.

Sher Zieve is a conservative political commentator who firmly believes that if Leftists ran the country (left to their own devices), it would be the end of the United States as a sovereign nation. Sher’s articles can be found on Google, MSN Newsbot, US-News.Net, Useless Knowledge and other news sites. Ms. Zieve welcomes you comments and can be reached at: earthseed@iwon.com.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marine appears in Time magazine
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Arlene Martínez
Of The Morning Call

In a photograph published this week in Time magazine, Lance Cpl. Jacob Knospler is in his hospital room, his right hand clenched with President Bush's.

More than a month after the Marine from the Poconos was badly wounded fighting in Fallujah, the president paid him and other injured troops a visit following Bush's annual physical Dec. 11 at the Bethesda National Naval Medical Center in Maryland.

In the edition that names Bush Person of the Year, a five-photo Time essay shows troops aged 19-23.

Knospler, of Middle Smithfield Township, received thanks and praise from the president. The photograph shows Knospler, lying in bed with balloons and presents in the backdrop, looking intently at Bush. Behind him, a sign wishes Knospler a happy 23rd birthday.

''I thought it was honorable and decent that he showed up to see all the Marines,'' said the Marine's father, John Knospler Sr., who was at the hospital when Bush visited. ''My feeling is there's a lot people in the armed services that are making sacrifices and I think the photograph represents that.''

It was the second tour of duty for Jacob Knospler, who followed his father's footsteps into the military. In 1971, during the Vietnam War, the elder Knospler served in the Navy.

Jacob Knospler, a graduate of East Stroudsburg High, was wounded Nov. 12 while clearing a building in the battle of Fallujah, according to his father. As he and others in the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, climbed an unlighted stairwell, a booby trap triggered and exploded in his face.

Four days later, he was transferred from a hospital in Germany to the medical center in Maryland.

Talking remains difficult as Knospler's jaw remains plated and wired, and more surgery will be required, according to his father. But Knospler now can walk with just a cane. ''He's recovering. ? He's communicating with his wife, he's reading, he's writing,'' his father said.

Knospler's family will spend Christmas with him. He is expected to remain at the hospital several more months.

For the first time Wednesday, Knospler saw his 16-week-old daughter, Jahna, the first child for him and his wife, Sheena. Concerns over his health prevented an earlier visit with the baby, who was born while he was in Iraq.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Camps leave troops insecure
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By NICK WADHAMS
Associated Press writer
Dec. 23, 2004

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq - American troops in Iraq must work around a wide range of vulnerabilities: soft-skinned tents instead of concrete buildings, a shortage of body armor and open or unprotected vehicles. They also try to boost the Iraqi economy by hiring Iraqis for such tasks as picking up trash and delivering food - leaving the door open for possible infiltrators.

Some weaknesses defy quick solutions: Permanent bases take time to build, budget constraints can prevent speedy deployments and U.S. troops are inherently at risk in a war zone like Iraq.

Tuesday's explosion at a U.S. base near Mosul highlighted the concerns. The military now believes the attack, which killed 22 people and wounded dozens, was carried out by a suicide bomber, further evidence of how insurgents can exploit the American policy of hiring Iraqis.

At Camp Fallujah, Iraqis drive truck convoys full of food, gravel or other supplies and roam the grounds clearing trash. They eat at the base's two mess halls, often sitting at tables to chat with the Americans.

Some troops worry the Iraqis are not well supervised. They say it is a common belief that the Iraqi workers are feeding information to insurgents.

"Iraqis here on this base are supposed to be escorted, but you see them walking around by themselves,'' said Lance Cpl. Chris Roell, member of a K-9 unit deployed to Iraq. "They've got better digital cameras than we do.

"We've got Iraqis trying to make us feel better, saying this is the holiday season, cheer up, and then they're leaving base and giving their buddies grid coordinates.''

U.S. officials have acknowledged the hiring policy can be risky, particularly in a country with no database of criminal records. But they maintain it is a sound practice at this sprawling base southeast of the city of Fallujah.

"They should be the ones who have the jobs and get the income and plow it back in for their families,'' said Lt. Gen. John Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq. "There has to be a starting point and this base is a starting point.''

One Marine, who spent three months at the camp guarding Iraqi detainees, said interrogators told him to watch Iraqi workers because prisoners were reporting the base had been infiltrated by insurgents.

"The interrogators say to check the Iraqis on the base, to be aware of their actions - if they walk past a certain area too many times, writing down stuff, that kind of thing,'' the Marine said, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said it was "an enormous challenge to provide force protection.''

"They have to be right 100 percent of the time,'' he said. "An attacker only has to be right occasionally.''

The Mosul attack also spotlighted the use of soft-sided tents as mess halls and living quarters. At Camp Fallujah, the Americans occupy a former Iraqi military base - a facility not built to U.S. specifications.

In November, Central Command issued a reminder about its force protection requirements, which include buildings made of reinforced concrete and blast walls. But it has not made new funding available, said Maj. Brian O'Leary of Camp Fallujah.

He said the territory - and military priorities - often dictate what gets done first. "If you've got a convoy that's got 50 truckloads and ammo is the priority, then you're not getting your (concrete) barriers,'' O'Leary said.

The most publicized issue in recent months has been the availability of armor. It came to the fore when U.S. reservists in Kuwait grilled Rumsfeld about the lack of heavy armor for vehicles.

Since then, the military has said it is accelerating the push to bring heavily armored vehicles to Iraq. At Camp Fallujah, most convoys will include armored vehicles, but there also are many Humvees and trucks, some 20 years old, whose side armor consists of a single sheet of metal.

Marines have made some improvements, covering the floors and truck beds with blast mats. They point to scars left by roadside bombs, universally referred to here as IEDs, short for improvised explosive devices.

"Shrapnel will go through this thing like paper,'' Bryce Rogow, a combat medic with the Marines' 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, said on a recent night as his five-vehicle convoy moved along dirt roads south of Fallujah littered with IEDs.

"I basically ride around these roads expecting to get hit. It's very grating.''

Still, many soldiers say the heavily armored vehicles have disadvantages - chief among them that they are slower and totally enclosed, preventing troops inside from defending themselves.

But the Americans say such vulnerabilities are part of the job, and learning to cope is one of their first responsibilities.

"If you look at any war that's ever been fought, there's been shortages,'' said Chief Petty Officer Charles Becker, a reservist with the Navy Seabees at Camp Fallujah. "They ran out of gas in World War II, so they had to stop the advance and wait for it to come up. What were they supposed to do, take that up with the secretary of defense?''


Ellie