Christmas Day attacks in Baghdad carried out by desperate few: US general

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20031227/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_us_general&cid=1514&ncid=1480

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The Christmas Day rocket attacks on Baghdad were carried out by a small minority of Iraqis and foreign fighters who want to move the clock back, US military deputy director for operations Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said.


"It takes very few people to create this kind of damage," Kimmitt told a news conference, vowing to press on with anti-insurgency operations including the one in the capital.


He estimated that 25 to 30 people were involved in the attacks around Baghdad on Thursday.


In what appeared to be a synchronised attack, insurgents fired four rockets into the main US compound in the capital's centre and three others towards the Sheraton hotel across the river, with one of those missing its intended target and flying into a family's apartment.

more

[wryter2000]

1. Maybe we ought to have those few on our side

They're pretty effective.

This spin makes we want to puke.

[Barrett808]

2. "there are very little reports of collateral damage"

Kimmitt said the Baghdad operation and others in the restive so-called Sunni triangle north and west of the capital were "extraordinarily precise operations."

"With the exception of one or two incidents there are very little reports of collateral damage," he said.

Yes, the Pentagon has an extraordinary ability to be deaf to widely corroborated reports. It takes real skill to "have no information" on so-called "collateral damage."

[leftchick]

3. a desperate few THOUSAND!

It is extremely frightening that these people seem to believe their own bull shit. Striking resemblence to Viet Nam.....

[louis-t]

4. amazing how the # of attacks is "down by half"

yet # of casualties remains the same.

[Malva Zebrina]

5. a desperate few

against our 130,000--knocking em off, one, two, three or four, every day.

[tabasco]

6. Who is it - those 3 criminals from Planet Krypton?

This small group really gets around Iraq. I can only surmise they have super-powers to create so much damage. It is laughable for a general to say we are fighting against a PLATOON of insurgents.

[daleo]

7. Imagine what damage a desperate many could do

If a desperate few can do what's happened so far.

[floridaguy]

8. My nephew's camp was one that was attacked . . .

and I don't think he cares who killed his friends and blew off his roomate's leg. I don't think it would make him feel any better how the attackers are characterized either. He's got a great attitude, though, and it amazes me. "I signed up, and I got a job to do", he says, "and then I'll come home".

Even though I can't go there and help him, I can do my best here. That's why every day I work to elect General Wesley Clark. I want a President that has some clue as to what we're doing in Iraq and how we're gonna bring them home.

We can't turn the clock back. Second-guessing the start of the war is a waste of effort and looks like whining. Wesley Clark knows how to get us out of Iraq.

That's just one of the reasons he will make a great President.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. my prayyers are for the troops and that they come home

and that they are not affected in obvious and not so obvioous ways

As to bringing them home, yes that is all we can do now.

And it will be Wes or soembody else, this cannot go on forever

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. more candy and flowers sent our way

I just wish they were not the explosive type as Wolfowitz
promised

And yes the spin is getting insane, every time the attacks slow down
we have these boys go and tell us, "see things are getting better."

No you D-s...ts, it usually is the calm before the next storm

Hell this is what is wrong with these boys, they cannot see that they are winning the war tactically but loosing strategically, like Vietnman.

[mouse7]

11. I was thinking "a desperate enough"

The IRA only had at the most only 600 active at any one time attacking UK interests.

Doesn't take many to immobilize an entire nation.

[Rick Myers]

12. Those comments always remind me of the very beginning

of the movie "Brazil." There's a TV on in a shop window and someone is interviewing a government official. The official is asked how he explains the 13-year string of terrorist bombings. The official responds, "Beginner's luck!"

And then the shop explodes...

And so it goes.

[OilemFirchen]

13. Nineteen hijackers

3,000 dead.

One right-wing whackjob, one federal building turned to dust.

Two pilots, two atomic bombs, two cities leveled.

So, presuming that the General has a point... what the fuck is it?

[hadrons]

14. "....attacks in Baghdad carried out by desperate few...."

but send us a few thousand more soldiers :eyes:

[rocktivity]

15. They're too clever to be considered desperate

and too effective to be dismissed as just a few.

If they're so insignificant, how come what they're doing is working?


rocknation

[xxqqqzme]

16. I think the 'd' word he

was thinking was 'determined'.

[Ernesto]

21. Hey man while my USMC buddies & I were

blowing away the people we were busy "liberating", McNamara kept telling us that that he could see the light @ the end of the tunnel. The problem was: every time we helped a "gook" meet his ancestors, we created a dozen more volounteer enemy resistance fighters.... Anybody see a corollary here?.... Think about it: it'll creep up on ya.

[Malva Zebrina]

17. not only was this stupid but it was insane

we tried to stop Bush--we tried to stop the insanity. We, those of us who braved the wintery mix, time after time to protest, did the best we could do and we grieved when we saw our names being used as the excuse to attack, without provocation, another country and we watched the lies, and we watched the slaughter--and it was, yes, it was a "slaughter" and no one is calling Bush on his "slaughter" :cry:

It has gone from bad to worse--since then, It's cruelty and it's barbarism has increased and it has done so, incredibly under the name and santion of a supposedly compassionate religion that belives in a benevolent god. LOL :eyes:

We know we are not getting reports as truth and we know the media is supporting this criminal outrage--this inhuman barbaric display of a puny little, intellectually challenged, more stupid than a box of doorknobs, man,if you can call him that, who is riding roughshod over defenseless people in a foreign country now because, simply he can, he is full of himself as commander in chief of the largest and the biggest and the best equipted military machine==and the irony is the stupid asshole went AWOL himself from serving his country in wartime

--he invaded the country of Iraq, and he lied in order to do so. It did not matter to this amoral man that he needed to lie in order to murder thousands of civilians--they had HIS oil.

Many here in this stupid country, do NOT know that. It is because the media has been bought by corporations and by wealth , it is, indeed the Pravda media. and we, the people, many of whom are the poorer people, suffer because of a stupid, dullard of a man who had to steal an election in order to get where he is and in order to murder without cause, thousands of women, children and old persons who are innocent victims of his lies.

The American media will not report the truth about this asshole who stole the election, who disrespects the democratic process, because, well who the hell knows why because. They probably do not care as long as they get their paycheck. Ethics and morals and striving to "do the right thing" is a concept that is foreign to them.

Probably because they enjoy thier job and it's perks and it's salary more than they would reflect or consider anything deeper than that.

[ScrewyRabbit]

18. It doesn't matter how many are willing to carry out attacks

What matters are the thousands who actively support the guerillas, the millions who don't offer active support but who outwardly sympathetic to the resistance, and the vast majority who are simply unhappy that we're there at all and who won't lift a finger either way.

What the general should be worrying about are all the Iraqis who spit on the bodies of our dead soldiers.

[kainah]

19. a small minority

but, unfortunately, this minority will continue to blossom. No matter how many of them we "get," they will be quickly replaced, just as will all the "terrorists."

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead.

I wonder if Kimmitt has ever seen that quote?

[NickB79]

22. Even a 1% minority

Is 250,000 insurgents/freedom fighters/anti-American fighters! Even 0.5% is still more than enough to equal all our troops in the region.

[LibDemAlways]

20. Definition of "insurgent" in Iraq:

Any Iraqi whose country was illegally invaded, bombed, and subsequently occupied by US forces; i.e., the Iraqi people who are sending a clear message -- Get the hell out.

[laruemtt]

23. remember - this is all

a sign of our "success" - the more successful we are over there, the more of our troops get killed :crazy:

[young_at_heart]

24. Do the families feel this "success" also?

It must be horrible for the families to hear that their loved one who was killed or injured was the victim of "just" a small group of insurgents.....much smaller than a few weeks ago (on tonight's news).

[xchrom]

25. viet nam

[Ernesto]

26. Vietnam