Posted on 04/23/2007 12:17:30 PM PDT by RedRover
Remember this? Sure you do. It seems a little more significant now, than it did at the time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4487862.stm
US Marines spokesman Captain Jeffrey Pool told the AFP news agency the militants had simply fired a rocket propelled grenade at a joint US-Iraqi observation post at 0930 (0630 GMT).
“As of 1400 (1100 GMT), there were no signs of any significant insurgent activity anywhere in the city.”
Captain Pool accused the militants of exaggerating the scale of the attack.
http://www.dawn.com/2005/06/19/top14.htm
June 19, 2005 Sunday Jumadi-ul-Awwal 11, 1426
“Approximately 50 insurgents have been killed since the operation began yesterday morning,” said US Captain Jeffrey Pool. “There have been no additional reports of military or civilian casualties as a result of the operation.” He said troops found four Iraqi hostages.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/10/04/us_troops_insurgents_clash_as_offensive_continues/
By Mohammed Barakat, Associated Press | October 4, 2005
In Karabilah, troops searched house-to-house for militants, apparently meeting stiffer resistance than in Sadah, which most fighters fled before the US troops moved in.
Marine snipers fired from rooftops and US helicopters flew overhead as the advance was slowed for about an hour by insurgent fire, a CNN journalist embedded with the Marines said.
At one point, about 20 Iraqis fled their homes, including one family — a mother, father and their child — who were wounded and bleeding after being hit by flying pieces of concrete, CNN footage showed.
They will not be caught.
Fight back with leaks of their own, press conferences condemning whatever politicians they can, let as much evidence in their defense out as possible, if not all of it.
It worked for the Duke players, they hit back hard, and took a trial to the public, could it work here?
These other incidents give some insight into Capt. Pool's mindset. His job every day was to sort out conflicting information from battalion and insurgent-sympathizers. The report regarding Haditha was no different than the others.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/02/news/iraq.php
By Edward Wong The New York Times
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2005
The U.S. military announced the deaths of four troops, two in a Marine helicopter crash in western Iraq that may have resulted from insurgent fire. The helicopter, an AH-1W Super Cobra, went down near Ramadi, 95 kilometers, or 60 miles, west of Baghdad and the capital of hostile Anbar Province.
Colonel Dave Lapan, a Marine spokesman, said the cause of the crash was unclear. But there were strong indications that the helicopter had been brought down by insurgents: A Marine Corps F-18D fighter jet dropped two 225-kilogram, or 500-pound, bombs on “a reported insurgent command center” just 500 meters, or 1,640 feet, from the helicopter crash site, said Captain Jeffrey Pool, another Marine spokesman.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050612/news_1n12iraq.html
By Edward Wong
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
June 12, 2005
The assault on the Wolf Brigade came as deadly attacks were reported elsewhere. South of Baghdad, gunmen surrounded a minibus carrying construction workers and shot 11 of them to death and wounded three others, police officials said.
Late Friday, a car bomb exploded outside a health center in the Shula neighborhood of the capital, killing at least 10 people and injuring 27 others, the Interior Ministry official said.
A hospital official in Fallujah said a roadside bomb explosion killed two Iraqis believed to be working at a U.S. base in the area and injured three others.
Fallujah lies in Anbar province, the most rebellious region of Iraq. U.S. Marines killed about 40 insurgents in the province during a series of seven airstrikes that began at 11:40 a.m. yesterday and ended at 4 p.m., Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool of the 2nd Marine Division said in a written statement.
The insurgents, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, medium machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, had set up a checkpoint near the town of Karabilah and had been stopping civilian vehicles, the captain said.
Fighter jets and attack helicopters from the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing made the strikes, which were aimed at an insurgent compound in the area and at the groups of rebel fighters, Pool said. “There are no reports of civilian casualties or collateral damage,” the captain added. “The air strikes ended at 4 p.m. once all the targets were destroyed.”
On Friday night, police officials also discovered the bodies of two Sudanese men in western Baghdad. The identities of the victims were not reported.
The U.S. military said the two Marines who died Friday were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle. The attack took place near Saqlawiya in Anbar province.
U.S. soldiers and four Iraqi security contractors engaged in a firefight on a road in western Baghdad at dawn yesterday, the Interior Ministry official said. The shootout ended in the death of two of the Iraqis and the wounding of the other two. An American officer, Lt. Jamie Davis, said the firefight began when the Iraqis drove too close to a U.S. convoy.
He said he had no confirmation that the Iraqis were security contractors, but said the soldiers found many Kalashnikovs in the car.
Also in the morning, police found the bodies of three Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, the Interior Ministry official said. The men, who belonged to the Sunni-dominated Dulaim tribe in rebellious western Iraq, had been handcuffed and blindfolded, and there were signs of torture on their bodies, the official said. The victims were Saadi Khalaf, an Oil Ministry employee; Muhammad Khalaf, a reporter for Al-Majd, a newspaper; and Esam Fadhil, their cousin.
The three men were taken from their homes in southern Baghdad on Friday night, reportedly by men wearing police uniforms and riding in Interior Ministry vehicles, the official said. Their kidnappers told people in those houses that they were intelligence officers with the Interior Ministry, the official added.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/04/international/middleeast/04cnd-iraq.html?ex=1275537600&en=02b0b6bba04a379d&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
By EDWARD WONG
Published: June 4, 2005
An Iraqi employee of the New York Times contributed reporting from Falluja.
In recent weeks, the Marines have tried two offensives in the area, first in the city of Qaim near the Syrian border, then in the city of Haditha near a large reservoir. Captain Pool, the Marine spokesman, said the Marines who had been searching for weapons caches in the last three days had mostly been acting on tips provided by locals, and that “these tips typically come through our tip line because locals are afraid that if they are seen cooperating with Marines or the Iraqi security forces, they might be killed.”
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10052
12/1/2005 5:55:00 PM GMT
* Rebels offensive in Ramadi
Iraqi fighters launched a major assault against U.S. forces early Thursday in the western city of Ramadi, residents said, according to Reuters.
The offensive began with a sustained mortar and rocket attack on a U.S. base in the city center and on a nearby provincial governor’s building.
More than 400 heavily armed men dispersed throughout the city after the attacks, and set up checkpoints at major entrances and exit points, witnesses said.
“They’ve taken control of all the main streets and other sections of Ramadi,” one correspondent said. “I’ve seen about 400 armed men controlling streets, some of which were controlled by Americans before,” he said.
The fighters also distributed leaflets declaring that AL-QAEDA in Iraq, the group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was now in control of the city.
“Al Qaeda in Iraq is taking control of Ramadi,” one of the leaflets read, according to Reuters. “Its followers will burn the Americans and will drive them back to their homes by force. Iraq will be a graveyard for the Americans and its allies.”
The U.S. army has a heavily fortified garrison in Ramadi, and the Iraqi army also has bases there.
Residents said there were no U.S. or Iraqi forces in the city after the attacks.
But reports say that the situation is calmer now and that U.S. forces were starting to patrol again.
* Denial
The U.S. army played down the scale of the assault, saying that there were no damages or casualties.
U.S. Marines spokesman Captain Jeffrey Pool told the AFP that the rebels fired rocket propelled grenade at a joint U.S.-Iraqi observation post at 0930 (0630 GMT).
“As of 1400 (1100 GMT), there were no signs of any significant insurgent activity anywhere in the city.”
Captain Pool also claimed that the fighters are exaggerating the scale of the attack.
“This is clearly a sign of how desperate insurgents have become,” he said.
Ramadi is the capital of the al-Anbar province, which has been a rebel stronghold since the start of the U.S. 2003 INVASION.
After U.S. occupation forces launched a deadly offensive in Fallujah last November, many fighters apparently escaped to Ramadi, which is about 60 km beyond Falluja.
Thursday’s assault came as about 2000 American soldiers and 500 Iraqi troops launched an offensive in the town of Hit, east of the River Euphrates, not far from Ramadi.
The U.S. army say the town was “suspected to be an al-Qaeda in Iraq safe area and base of operations for the manufacture of vehicle car bombs.”
Yes, they also give insight into what these Marines were, and are, fighting.
This is all just so disgusting. And I don’t feel good today, so when I say it makes me want to vomit, I’m not kidding.
At least things are moving to a point where the prosecution has no case. One will always have the intra-military envy.
Good post, Red. Every item that comes out like this just points to the weak case against these Marines. While much of the public may have already convicted them because of fat jack murtha and the enemedia, all of these points will be given much consideration at the Art. 32 or a courts-martial panel should it get that far.
Jaz, I think our friend pink may be on the case, blog-wise.
Yes very soon as soon as my TWO year old figures out its past her bedtime...
tap, tap, tap..
There is that other article as well.... Which to do first.... hmm.
Just to keep things clear:
The USMC has fought for decades to stay out of SOCOM. The general attitude is that it is a bad thing. It sucks away needed assets that can not be replaced. It is a strain on already stressed systems and will cost the Corps training dollars that they cant afford to give up.
There was much deep resentment from what I have heard so far on being forced into doing this “Special Ops” stuff.
Good point.
I will further expound on this point- that on the base (elementary) level if Jody, the Captain of the Cheerleading Squad, wants Marie to join the Cheerleading Squad because she’s tired of Marie thinking she’s all that, and Marie thinks she doesn’t need or want to be a part of it...Jody, the Captain, CAN get her panties in a major wad and WILL bite, kick, scratch AND pull hair AND tell everyone Marie’s a whore to make Marie look bad, and then, will dump her.
Some girls never grow up.
Again, for the sake of clarity, because this is often misunderstood...
The USMC’s resistance to playing the SOC games wasn’t because of ego or because of schong swinging contests or any such.
The USMC has always been kept on most very tight fiscal restraints. Too often, it would come down to such choices as replace shot out artillery tubes or keep up scheduled elint recon flights on the NorKor DMZ? Cut back the number of prequal shooting days on the rifle range? or cut back on field training schedules?
Organizations like the Army and the Navy built things like SEAL teams and Spec Force because they could afford to do so. More power to them. Those are outstanding operations, but the USMC is a much smaller service with much less depth to draw from and usually not enough budget to cover already existing needs.
Now, I’m no longer active duty and haven’t been for a couple decades, nor am I from the recon community, so if anyone with more relevant info chimes in contrary to what I say here then... there it is.
But, here’s what I’m hearing. Recon has been gutted and selection for training into recon has been greatly reduced in degree of stress and demands put on prospective trainees. This is because the SOC group sucked up nearly all the resources and now recon must make compromises in order to refill ranks needful for the missions required on the battlefield in support of deployed USMC units.
And so far, to what purpose? So that our enemy, after some learning and experience, knows that all they have to do is manufacture an incident and squeel like stuck pigs to get the unit kicked out of country for being too mean to the enemy.
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