Reply #23: Sorry, I missed your posts on this, Ray of Light!

[beachmom]

Well, I don't know precisely when the Battle began, but certainly they had to do some prestaging before going in. And, probably, there were bombings before that, too to soften the place. There's a book about the battle (The Battle of Fallujah). If I'm at a book store, I'll check the dates and see if they mention the election. Kerry was privvy to classified info as soon as he became the nominee, so he definitely must have known what was up with Fallujah. During the campaign, he criticised * for the fact that there were "no go zones" like Fallujah, so obviously, he supported going in to take the town. Of course, all of those deaths, both American and Iraqi, were due to a series of major mistakes that led up to those 4 contractors being killed so heinously.