Assault on Fallujah 'Ahead of Schedule'

[maddezmom]

~snip~

Natonski, who designed the ground attack, said he and other planners took lessons from the failed three-week Marine assault on the city in April, which was called off by the Bush administration after a worldwide outcry over civilians deaths. This time, the military sent in six times as many troops and 20 types of aircraft. Troops also faked attacks before the assault to confuse enemy fighters.

~snip~

After troops uproot the insurgents, contractors are supposed to swarm into Fallujah to cart away rubble, repair buildings, and fix the city's utilities, Wilson and Natonski said.


The Iraqi government has already picked leaders for Fallujah, and thousands of Iraqi police and paramilitary forces have been recruited to try to impose order.

~snip~

"We never expected them to be there. We're not after Zarqawi. We're after insurgents in general," Natonski said.

much more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041...

[theHandpuppet]

1. Ah yes, nothing like flattening a city...

... to create fat new contracts for Halliburton to rebuild it.

So the puppet Iraqi govt has already picked the new leaders for Fallujah? Ah, don't you just love the smell of democracy in the morning?

[maddezmom]

3. yah...and ya have to wade through all the shit at the top

to get to quotes like:

We never expected them to be there. We're not after Zarqawi. We're after insurgents in general," Natonski said.

Natonski described the six days of ground war as a "flawless execution of the plan we drew up. We are actually ahead of schedule."

[susu369]

7. "flawless execution" - indeed

as in massacre.

[maddezmom]

9. so flawless...thay are still fighting and can't let aid in

[ClintonTyree]

2. Just like they're "not after" Bin Laden...........

when I heard the two critical words, "mission accomplished" by Allawi this weekend, I had a strange sense of deja vu. I wonder how the rebuilding will go now? I can see caontactors being kidnapped left and right and buildings being blown up faster than they can put them up. Just what we need, another "mission accomplished".

[xchrom]

4. We're not after Zarqawi. We're after insurgents in general," Natonski said

they're never after the real culprits -- they're after the guys at the bottom -- the fodder.
doesn't that give anybody who voted for bush a fuckin CLUE?!?!

[getoffmytrain]

14. Finding any one man

that lives the life of a guerilla fighter is very very hard, ask the Indian government that spent 25 years trying to find Veerappan, the notorious Indian bandit, who was finally killed in a shoot out with Indian soldiers about two weeks ago.

It's a huge gamble for the coalition to claim they are 'hot on the heels' of any one man in Iraq. It took 9 months to find Saddam, the momst famous man in the country.

[daleo]

20. It wouldn't matter anyway

Capturing or killing a few individuals rarely breaks the back of a popular resistance to foreign invasions.

[maddezmom]

5. reuters link: U.S. Troops Tackle Last Rebel Redoubt in Falluja

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. tanks shelled and machine-gunned rebels still holding out in Falluja Sunday in heavy fighting that was preventing an Iraqi Red Crescent convoy from getting aid to civilians trapped in the city for six days.

A Reuters reporter with the aid convoy at the main hospital near the Euphrates on the city's western edge said he could see tanks firing cannons and heavy machineguns at rebel targets in a district just across the river amid the thud of mortars.


The fighting erupted even though a Marine officer said earlier that resistance in a last rebel redoubt was dwindling.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041...

[jmcgowanjm]

10. in a district just across the river

the main hospital near the Euphrates on the city's western edge.
This is just what Mafkarat al Islam is saying.
(US forces have been cut off, surrounded, and destroyed.
Al Jawlan NW Fallujah has been cleared . Fighting just along edge.)

And of course the Red Crescent supply is not being
prevented for moving into Falluja it's just that the marines
think it's too dangerous for the convoy. Please.

Doctor Jamal al-Karbuli, the secretary-general of the Iraqi
Red Crescent, "is negotiating with the Americans to let
them distribute the supplies to the people", al-Abadi told
AFP.

"Jamal is insisting, at least, to have permission to get the
injured people out of Falluja and into the
hospital."

Civilians hiding in the city, where US and Iraqi troops
have clashed with the resistance since Monday, are dying
of starvation and thirst and something must be done to
help them, al-Abadi said.

Why not accept the challenge of IR spokesperson and
open Falluja to independent media.

[annabanana]

6. who has clips from the "run into Bagdad"

Isn't it the same?..less than expected resistance...they must have left the city earlier....

We can expect sniping forever there too.

[maddezmom]

8. yeas, another "catastrophic success"

[jmcgowanjm]

11. April 6 03 Airport battle said continuing

After several unsuccessful attacks Iraqis managed to
drive Americans back from the second runway to the
airport building. Currently the coalition forces control the
building itself and the new runway bordering to it. During the
day the foes had to increase their strengths and
deploy reinforcements. By the evening up to 2 regular
Iraqi brigades and 2 thousand militiamen were fighting for
the airport. Americans had to use all available forces of the
3rd Mechanized Division and 101st Airborne Division to
repulse the attacks. Only assault aircraft and battle
helicopters made more than 300 operation flights to this
region.

All the claims made by aviation commander of the
coalition, general Michael Mosley, about "Iraqi army, as
an organized structure consisting of large units, exists no
longer" are contrary to fact and, according to analytics,
are probably connected with severe pressure put on the
military command by American financial groups that
desperately needed good news from the US-Iraqi front by
the end of the financial week. In fact, the Republican
Guards defending Baghdad have not lost even 5% of
their numerical strength and military equipment. Most of
those losses were due to bombardments and not land
combats. The total losses of Iraqi army since the beginning
of the war have not exceeded 5-8% of their defensive
potential. This means the main battles are still to be
seen.

http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/iraqwar_ru_023.h...

[jmcgowanjm]

12. April 7 03 Last Russian intel report

Russian Military intel update: War in Iraq, April 7 (morning)
04.07.2003 
 
The situation on the US-Iraqi front during the morning-night
on April 7th was characterized by extreme fierceness of
combat. During the night-morning the coalition units continued
to encircle the city from west and east. The 2nd brigade of
the 3rd Mechanized Division, as was revealed before, after
a five-hour march reached the northern approaches of
Baghdad and occupied the region bordering to the
strategic bridge Salah-Khasan, but was unable to seize
the bridge itself because of a heavy missile and artillery
barrage. Up to 10 men were killed, at least 20 wounded. In
the morning the brigade lost its communication center
destroyed by a tactical Iraqi missile.

By the afternoon Iraqi actions became more
confident.
There is information that one of yesterday’s air strikes
severely damaged one of their communication and
control centers and currently the Iraqi command has to
control their units using VHF-stations and envoys which
delays battle-orders and commands.
Today the American command had to admit that the
fighting potential of Baghdad defenders is “fairly high” and
the rivals show no sign of
demoralization.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2653.ht...

According to the way the IR has been fighting since,
IMHO, I believe the Republican Guard was betrayed.
Unfortunately for us, we have no more Resistance
to buy off.

[llmart]

13. Yeah! We're winning!

All the armchair warriors will be so pleased with propaganda like this. Too bad it isn't the truth. But then the truth isn't what we deal with in our media nowadays. Let's show them some of our soldiers in body bags (oops, "transfer tubes"), coffins, without eyes, limbs, etc. and then let's see how we're "winning."

P.S. When are the Bush twins enlisting?

[zippy890]

15. I'm finding myself getting so disgusted

by the US media being so progandistic that I am starting to feel support for these 'insurgents'. I am becoming very very anti-war, because this is all to familiar to me from Vietnam war days.

Fallujah liberated. Fallujah decimated.

There is a lot of blood on the hands of * and co. If there is a hell, they will burn there.

[llmart]

18. I'm in the same boat as you.

I read these news threads and get disgusted all over again. I find myself rooting for the "insurgents" too. I guess anyone who fights back is an "insurgent". We have to label them like this to get us to hate them and to feel that we're in the right and they're in the wrong. And I'm VietNam generation also, so it's like dejavu only now I'm 55 and not 19.

[neohippie]

16. So thing's in Iraq are ahead of schedule again

Invasion ahead of schedule, attack on Fallujah ahead of schedule...

Deaths of innocent bystanders and unarmed non-enemy combatants ahead of schedule.

[maddezmom]

17. puke alert: General Praises Speed of Fallujah Success

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&nci...

sorry, normally I snip, but this whole article makes me sick.

[daleo]

19. Contractors in Fallujah

"After troops uproot the insurgents, contractors are supposed to swarm into Fallujah to cart away rubble, repair buildings, and fix the city's utilities, Wilson and Natonski said."

We remember how well that worked before. I suppose this is just part of the "in your face" element of the occupation.

[maddezmom]

21. yep, we wreck it and then Halliburton re-builds it

of course at the taxpayers expense. Not only do we bomb the shit out of Iraq but then the US keeps the masses unemployed while contractors are making a bundle...if they make it out alive.