Fallujah pounded ahead of assault
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
U.S. troops and combat aircraft unleashed artillery
and precision strikes yesterday on terrorist hide-outs
in Fallujah, shaping the battle space for what is designed as a final
ground assault to cleanse [!] the renegade city of foreign and Iraqi
insurgents. [What a way to put it: to "cleanse"! Doesn't it remind
us of ethnic "cleansing" in Kosovo, Bosnia, etc.? Or of the Nazi
jargon that introduced this concept of "cleansing" first? - Jewish
citizens, "gipsies" and homosexuals were considered dirty and called "parasites"
or "louts" that had to be "wiped out." In addition to large-scale
shootings of captured Jewish civilians and Jewish resistance
fighters in Nazi-occupied Russia, the gas chambers were just one way of
"cleansing" the "Aryan 'Volkskoerper' [body of the people]. Congratulations!
Today's US leadership and its journalistic clerks are obsessed with cleanliness,
too, as are all those voters in the Nov.2 election who embraced a
'clean view' of American morality. A view, by the way, that is perhaps
as fundamentalist as the views of the backward looking, "value-oriented"
Islamic Right. (These people, with their medieval values, are certainly
part of the resistance now - though the bulk of the resistance is probably
formed by the majority of enlightened muslims and Christians who
reject US occupation of Iraq today).
A combined force of Marines, Army soldiers and Iraqi national guardsmen
ringed the city west of Baghdad, blocking exit routes. For
weeks, the coalition has allowed residents to leave in an effort to further
isolate an estimated 5,000 militants inside the city. Aircraft dropped
leaflets urging residents to leave for designated refugee areas. [Certainly
driving or attempting to drive 300,000 people from their city is comparable
to the Serbian reactionary leadership's attempt to drive Kosovars from
their homeland? Will we see Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld join Milosevic in
The Hague, four years from now?]
"The window is closing for a peaceful settlement,"
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said at a press conference in Brussels,
where he met with European Union leaders. "We intend to liberate the people....
The
insurgents and the terrorists [and they are really one and the same, for
the US occupiers and many of the journalists in bed with them - sorry,
"embedded" with them - ?] are still operating there. We hope they will
come to their senses otherwise we will have to bring them to face justice."
Mr. Allawi's comments came after EU leaders responded
to his call to build a strategic partnership with Iraq by offering $40
million to fund the fledgling democracy's first elections since Saddam
Hussein was ousted.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also weighed
in on Iraqi elections yesterday, warning [the US-selected "prime
minister" of Iraq,] Mr. Allawi, [but especially] President Bush and British
Prime Minister Tony Blair that an offensive on Fallujah will alienate Iraqis.
Sunni clerics already have threatened to boycott the election if Fallujah
is attacked.
"The threat or actual use of force not only risks
deepening the sense of alienation of certain communities, but would also
reinforce perceptions among the Iraqi population of a continued military
occupation," Mr. Annan wrote in the letter to the leaders.
The Bush administration and Mr. Blair said Mr. Allawi
will make the call on Fallujah. The administration believes Fallujah must
be cleaned out ahead of planned elections
in late January.
The United States has lost more than 1,000 service
members in combat deaths in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. In
Anbar province, which includes the restive cities of Fallujah and Ramadi,
Marines are killed weekly by rocket fire and roadside bombs. [Meanwhile,
independent studies put the Iraqi toll of military and above all, civilian
casualties that resulted as a consequence of the illegal war and its after-effects,
at 100,000 if not - according to another source, 180,000. Like the Nazis
in occupied France, the US occupation forces make a point to retaliate
by taking dozens if not hundreds of lifes if one or two of their own bunch
get killed. Remember that Fallujah became the target of a first US military
assault, leading to hundreds of civilian casualties, after two (!) American
civilians were killed by a road mine and then dragged through Fallujah's
streets.]
Military sources said a major assault could come
within days, as Marines completed training for hitting specific targets
inside a sprawling city of 300,000. They
were also training Iraqis [that joined the newly formed army
of Iraq, desperate for jobs] in the correct battlefield techniques.
"I know you want to wear masks so nobody will
recognize you [that is to say, identify you and remember you as a traitor
of your compatriots] but the terrorists wear masks, too, and Marines shoot
people with masks," Reuters quoted Marine Staff Sgt. Anthony Villa as telling
the Iraqis.
Inside the city, cleric Hadra al Mohammadiya spoke
in a mosque to several hundred anti-coalition fighters.
"We are forced to go into this battle but we were
hoping for peaceful solution," the imam said. "The [US-imposed] Iraqi
government and the American forces [rather than the Iraqi population] want
this war to take place."
Retired Army Lt. Col. Robert
Maginnis yesterday said Mr. Bush's decisive re-election Tuesday gives him
the mandate to take the decisive action that is required. [In other words,
the Bush campaign wanted nothing of the sort before the election was over.
Now, US voters seem to have given Bush the go ahead, by an official margin
of nearly 4 million votes.]
"We'll take casualties. But we'll clean
it up. That's the intent. Clean out
the environment so we can have elections," he said.
Intelligence reports from inside the town and overhead
surveillance have pinpointed where the insurgents live and organize. In
recent months, commanders have [terrorized the civilian pouplation of the
town by having] called in air strikes and artillery barrages. Military
sources said yesterday the strikes have killed at least 10 top lieutenants
of Abu Musab Zarqawi [a bit of news at least as correct as the well-targeted
"precision" bombs that killed innocent families...] . The Jordanian-born
terrorist has used Fallujah as a base from which to direct an unending
series of car-bombings against American and Iraqi troops.
Seven months ago, Marines seemed on the verge of
subduing Fallujah. They conducted house-by-house, search-and-destroy missions
that killed hundreds of [civilians and an unspecific number of] militant[s].
But Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the top U.S. commander, halted
operations after Iraqi interim government officials objected. The fear
was that continuing the killing [of civilians] would prevent the naming
of a transition government.
The halt proved costly. Zarqawi and other terrorists
used the pause to build up men, arms and money — most of it pouring across
the Syrian border.
Now, American and Iraqi troops faced a force probably
five times as large as the one they would have battled in April, according
to a military source.
It is not clear whether Zarqawi, who has personally
beheaded captives, is inside Fallujah. Military sources told The Washington
Times this past summer that he left the city and constantly moves from
location to location. He takes a hands-on approach, personally greeting
newly arrived jihadists from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and other countries. He
then gives the assassins car-bombing missions, usually against Iraqis who
are aiding the Americans.
An attack on Fallujah would be the fourth major
assault in Iraq since spring and summer to wrest control of insurgent-held
territory. Previously, U.S. Army troops and Iraqi guardsmen pacified
Najaf
["pacified"! - a euphemism that was applied to Me-Lai and locations of
slaughter elsewhere in Vietnam, as well] in southern Iraq, Sadr City neighborhood
in Baghdad and Samara north of the city.
Col. Maginnis said Fallujah will be the toughest
yet [apart from Ramadi, another large city which may come next].
"The number in Samara was probably a couple of hundred
and they were not as hardened as some of these outsiders are in Fallujah,"
Col. Maginnis said. "They're spread out more in Fallujah than we'd like.
It's going to be a little more difficult to track them down."
French President Jacques
Chirac — who opposed the Iraq war — did not attend yesterday's EU meeting
with Mr. Allawi, but said he was not snubbing Iraq's prime minister.
At the time of the meeting, Mr. Chirac was flying to the United Arab Emirates
to meet with its new leader.
The Washington Times, Nov. 9, 2004
Coalition uses divide-conquer plan in Fallujah
By Rowan Scarborough and Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Coalition troops are employing a divide-and-conquer strategy in Fallujah,
Iraq, capitalizing on months of pinpointed intelligence to seal off terrorist-held
neighborhoods and then attack enemy pockets.
"It's going to be going on for a period ahead,"
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said of the long-anticipated operation,
which began Sunday.
A military source said the Pentagon expects the
battle for Fallujah to take about one week and estimated there are about
2,000 to 5,000 enemy fighters, about half of whom are non-Iraqi.
The United States last
entered Fallujah in April, when Marines killed hundreds of
[civilians and an unspecified number of resistance fighters, described
by them as] rebels. The Marines seemed to be on a path to capturing
the town, when Iraqi politicians urged Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez to stop
the battle or risk political upheaval.
"I cannot imagine that it would stop without being
completed," Mr. Rumsfeld said of the current operation.
There was no word of whether master terrorist Abu
Musab Zarqawi was in Fallujah, which has served as a command center for
his cells of foreign terrorists who specialize in deadly suicide car bombings.
"From Fallujah, they have exported terror across
Iraq against all Iraqis," said Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander
in Iraq.
Since April, American forces have stayed outside
the city. But intelligence collection has proceeded at a furious pace.
Military
sources said the U.S. command has a block-by-block schematic of the large
city and knows from day to day where the rebels live and plan. [This is
why in the present assault, already several innocent civilians, including
children, have been the victims of US bombs.] That is how coalition
aircraft have been able to direct precision-guided weapons at specific
buildings known to harbor rebels.
"They have mapped the city and are taking the city
down by sections," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney.
Mr. Rumsfeld yesterday
assured reporters that "disciplined" U.S. troops will keep civilian deaths
to a minimum.
"There aren't going to be
large numbers of civilians killed, certainly not by U.S. forces,"Mr.
Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon. U.S. commanders think that at least half
the city's estimated 300,000 residents has left Fallujah.
"The U.S. forces are disciplined," the defense secretary
said. "They are well-led. [Commanders told the troops ammassed around this
city of 300,000 to "kick some butt", according to one embedded reporter;
their job was to "kill or capture" fighting age males between 15
and 45, if not over 45... Apparently, the killing instinct is being kindled.
It is hard to see how restraint is going to be a major virtue of these
soldiers.] They're well-trained. They are using precision. And they have
rules of engagement that are appropriate to an urban environment."
Gen[eral] McInerney, a
Vietnam War fighter pilot, said his worry is that troops will be too cautious.
"If they worry too much
about collateral damage [a euphemism for: civilian victims], then you have
to move slower," he said. "I would level any building that offers resistance.[Reports
coming in say this is exactly what's happening.] If you try to pick
guys out of a building rather than just blowing it up, that's going to
take longer. You run the risks of booby traps. You run the risk of losing
["your own", i.e. US army] people. ... We know this battle is against terrorists
[not human beings that resist an illegal occupation in the aftermath of
an illegal war], and we must be ruthless [!] in the way we destroy
them."
The exact intelligence has enabled U.S. troops to
assault the city at enemy strong points.
There is a hope that the precision strikes will
lead to a quick victory against ragtag fighters who, while deadly, are
no match for well-trained and equipped U.S. forces, whose night-vision
goggles and sights give them a big advantage in the urban terrain.
The coalition's block-by-block data on Fallujah
is pieced together by numerous reconnaissance flights, communications intercepts
and Iraqi informants inside the city. Two unmanned aircraft, the Predator
and Global Hawk, provide constant video and still pictures for planners
to analyze.
Terrorists have increased the use of intimidation
tactics and violence to prevent citizens from leaving the city or informing
against them, military source said.
Gen. Casey told Pentagon reporters via a teleconference
call that estimates of a 10,000 to 15,000 U.S. and coalition strike force,
including Iraqis, were "in the ballpark."
Gen. Casey said the insurgents are armed with AK-47s,
machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft machine guns,
he said.
However, the most danger to advancing American and
friendly Iraqi forces will be homemade car bombs from terrorists.
"The weapons of choice for them are going to be
the improvised explosive devices and the car bombs," Gen. Casey said. "And
all our intelligence is telling us that they have lined some of the streets
with the improvised explosive devices, much like we saw in Najaf and Thawra."
Vehicles packed with explosives also have been placed
throughout the city, and "we expect them to come at us with car bombs,
you know, as they're driving through the city now," Gen. Casey said.
The Iraqi government, in response, has banned auto
traffic inside Fallujah as a way to protect troops.
The insurgents are thought to have an "outer-crust
defense" that likely will collapse "toward the center of the city where
they will be probably a major confrontation," Gen. Casey said.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, said some insurgents likely will try to blend into the civilian
population.
"And that may make it harder in certain circumstances,"
said Gen. Myers, who appeared with Mr. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. "There
are also indications that they want to fight in a more conventional way."
Mr. Rumsfeld said he did not think the battle for
Fallujah will be a final showdown with enemy forces in Iraq.
"These folks are determined. These are killers [like
the Native Americans were, in Custer's opinion; the American soldiers,
off course, don't kill...]. They chop people's heads off [a brutal strategy
by some extremely old-fashioned, value-oriented, Conservative members
of the Iraqi resistance, certainly a minority, who still take
"an eye for an eye" literally and who responded to a US public message
that offered a reward on the "head" of a Sunni cleric from an old and renowned
family of Iraq clerics]. They're getting money from around the world [are
they? / isolated as they are, in their various, encircled cities]. They're
getting recruits," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
"And over time, you'll find that the process of
tipping will take place; that more and more of the Iraqis will be angry
about the fact that their innocent people are being killed by the extremists,
saw a number of them from outside the country, and they won't like it."
Gen[eral] Casey said some of the key insurgent leaders
are expected to stay and fight, he said, while others will flee and regroup.
"Yes, they'll go off to other places and try to
get set up, but when they're doing that, they have to look over their shoulder,
they have to worry about who's at the door, they have to put guards out
all the time," he said.
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