Insurgents fight U.S., Iraqi forces to stalemate in Ramadi

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2006/05/24/news/world/4967840d9eb8835e8725717600806b42.txt

RAMADI, Iraq -- Whole neighborhoods are lawless, too dangerous for police. Some roads are so bomb-laden that U.S. troops won't use them. Guerrillas attack U.S. troops nearly every time they venture out -- and hit their bases with gunfire, rockets or mortars when they don't.

Though not powerful enough to overrun U.S. positions, insurgents here in the heart of the Sunni Muslim triangle have fought undermanned U.S. and Iraqi forces to a virtual stalemate.

"It's out of control," says Army Sgt. 1st Class Britt Ruble, behind the sandbags of an observation post in the capital of Anbar province. "We don't have control of this ... we just don't have enough boots on the ground." snip

The sheer scale of violence in Ramadi is astounding.

One recent coalition tally of "significant acts" -- roadside bombs, attacks, exchanges of fire -- indicated that out of 43 reported in Iraq on a single day, 27 occurred in Ramadi and its environs, according to a Marine officer who declined to be named because he's not authorized to speak to the media.

And that, he said, was "a quiet day" -- when nothing from Ramadi even made the news.

[Roland99]

1. "Some roads are so bomb-laden that U.S. troops won't use them"

How many times was Ramadi taken and re-taken in the last 3 years?

[marmar]

2. Almost as many times as the Al Qaeda No. 2 has been captured...

:think:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. (psst. they were NO. 3s, not No. 2's)

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. officially, or in fact? Remember, Condi's universe has a whole

fact-less authoritarian, comprehensive, explanatory, expectorant, cough-soothing, false-face-based, intra-locutory, infer-blasphematory, extra-ludite-ory symphonic, piano based idiot-driven, method of spinning crap into the finest emperor's robe.

How appropriate.

From shit comes the most incredible weaving of . . . . shit.