I am SO glad the general set us straight on this. I am sick and tired of seeing article after article from the lame stream press posted here on FR talking about our "defeat," how the Fallujans are, "thrilled that the Marines are retreating," etc.
Posted on 05/02/2004 8:51:31 AM PDT by Eurotwit
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Gen. Jasim Mohamed Saleh, a former general in Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s elite Republican Guard, is not likely to take charge in the volatile Iraqi city of Falluja and is still being vetted for a possible peacekeeping role, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Sunday.
"There's another general they're looking at," Myers told ABC's This Week. "My guess is, it will not be General Saleh. It will not -- he will not be their leader. ... He may have a role to play, but that vetting has yet to take place."
Myers did not respond to a question on Fox News Sunday on whether Saleh, a former general in Saddam's elite Republican Guard, had been involved with the brutal suppression of Iraq (news - web sites)'s Kurdish minority, but he reiterated that Saleh was not in command of the forces inside Falluja.
"The reporting to date has been ... very, very inaccurate," Gen. Richard B. Myers told Fox News. "We've gotten a lot of help from tribal sheiks and other folks."
"... The reports of that one general ... Gen. Saleh that you've just mentioned ... and there's another general as well. ... They are being vetted as we speak by the Iraqi minister of defense and the Iraqi provisional authorities."
"They have not been vetted, they have not been put in charge," Myers said.
Myers appearance on three different Sunday morning political talk shows seemed calculated to counter reporting out of Iraq suggesting the U.S. military had suffered a virtual defeat in Falluja and had turned to Saddam's former military chiefs to salvage the situation.
"No, it's not a reversal," Myers said on ABC of his refusal to endorse Saleh as military chief in Falluja. "I think the -- again, as I said, the reporting on this has been very, very bad and way ahead of the facts." "When you wake up and you see CNN and they say, "The Marines are withdrawing from Falluja," and you see a sand-colored vehicle moving, we all jumped to the same conclusion, 'Well, they are leaving."'
'MARINES HAVE NOT WITHDRAWN'
"The marines have not withdrawn from Falluja," Myers told CBS' Face the Nation. "They are not withdrawing from Falluja."
Saleh himself played down his own position in Saddam's Baath party and said he left the Republican Guard before becoming an infantry general. But a senior Shi'ite politician said he had also been a general in the Guard itself.
"Obviously it's not going to be in anyone's interests to put someone who is connected with the former regime and with atrocities in charge," Myers told CBS, when pressed on how much U.S. authorities knew about Saleh's history.
A U.S. official said rank would not exclude anyone from a role in the new Iraqi forces, although another official in the Iraq administration said the policy of excluding senior figures of Saddam's regime remained "rock solid."
"The goals and objectives ... in Falluja have been what they've been all along," Myers insisted.
"We've got to deal with the extremist and foreign fighters, we've got to get rid of the heavy weapons and we've got to find the folks that perpetrated the Blackwater atrocity" in which four American contract workers were killed and mutilated by a mob in the Sunni Muslim city, Myers said.
" ... It would be preferable if the Iraqis would deal with this situation. ... We think we are very close to having Iraqis help achieve our objectives in Falluja."
"This is a microcosm of what we want to happen all over Iraq," Myers told Fox News. "... We think that is far preferable than the U.S. going into there in a very major combat operation to achieve those objectives."
" ... If we can make this work then it's going to be a good example for the rest of Iraq ... Is it worth a try? you bet. Are we sure it's going to work? No, we're not sure it's going to work, but it looks like the best chance we've had."
U.S.-led forces are also struggling to impose their will in another flashpoint town, the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, south of the capital, where radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has taken refuge with thousands of his Mehdi Army militia.
"The marines have not withdrawn from Falluja," Myers told CBS' Face the Nation. "They are not withdrawing from Falluja."
Hee, hee, hee. Either CNN has been caught lying, or they have been fed disinformation and mousetrapped. And this time it isn't Worldnet Daily that is reporting the lie, it's REUTERS.
In other words, the news sources have lost all their credibility. What a shame.
Why beat around the bush with sinking ships? The press as epitomized by Ted Koppell want DEAD American Soldiers, preferably on film. The entire main stream press is actively engaged in sedition. It is a disgrace. It is crucial that we in the public at large fight back by turning the left wing bastards off!
This is true. Otherwise it is a stunning defeat. We must have victory. We must have leaders who are not afraid of killing people to obtain complete victory.
Well, failure could mean getting a Democrat elected, which is what most of the press would like. So your observation might be pretty accurate.
One of my brothers just came back from Greece, he said the local news there simply passed on the Al Jazzera line without questions.
I am SO glad the general set us straight on this. I am sick and tired of seeing article after article from the lame stream press posted here on FR talking about our "defeat," how the Fallujans are, "thrilled that the Marines are retreating," etc.
I remember an editorial cartoon from the period where a woman is saying to her husband, "Can we change the channel to one that has our side winning?" The only people who weren't baffled when the statue of Saddam came tumbling down were those who had watched at least some coverage on Fox News, where a horrendous American defeat was not the sole message from the front. In the old days people would assume that the Pentagon would lie about such things, while "reporting" from the scene was accurate. That has been turned on its head as reporters have been caught time after time spewing anti-American, anti-war, anti-Bush political propaganda that has no basis in fact. I have been stunned during this Fallujah operation by the number of Freepers who jump on wire service content from Reuters or CNN as if it were true. Nothing these people say is true... about anything. AP couldn't publish a weather report without finding a way to turn it into a slam on Bush. CNN is worse. The BBC is much worse. And Reuters might as well be the new Iraqi Information Ministry, complete with Baghdad Bob up there telling us the "elite" Republican Guard is roasting our stomachs. Why does anyone believe a word these reporters say anymore? How many times do they have to tell us about quagmires and faulty plans and total disasters before we figure out that they're making it up... because they're all a bunch of anti-war liberal crusaders instead of real journalists? |
And why do they post article after article of that kind of misinformation? I appreciated your posts last night, BTW. Thanks.
There has to be an end game. All operations must be focused on this predetermined ideal. Perhaps it serves our interests to have a viable Sunni center of power. The Shiites have been getting restless, and perhaps we are looking for a card to play against them, should the need arise.
All 3 major populations in Iraq will need some degree of autonomy in order to make this thing work.
I don't really have a problem with people posting it. It can be fun trying to piece together the truth by noticing where the liars are contradicting each other.
Nevertheless, this phenomenon of people believing any damned thing is becoming embarrassingly stupid around here. The other night somebody posted an obvious propaganda piece from the Tehran Daily Mullah, and within ten notes we had people saying, "See? I told ya that Bush would never blah blah blah." Hello? This is the house organ of the Ayatollahs. You sure you want to trust what it says?
Well, what is Reuters, except the house organ of the European left? They belong in the same box with Radio Havana as far as credibility is concerned.
I'm pretty sure he doesn't want a 'stunning defeat'.............though I could be wrong about that............ and since you have all the answers about how to obtain 'victory,' maybe you should give him a buzz.
This story changes every few minutes.
The American people have serious doubts about the credibility of the media to begin with, and this is going to drive the point even further.
I choose to believe only what I hear from the mouths of those who are in charge, and know what's really going on...........like General Myers.
Of course, there are a few freepers who have collective cows whenever they see a headline that makes us look 'weak,' but they, fortunately, are a small, albeit shrieking minority, and are best ignored......
That's the point I'm at too. I feel a bit guilty for this. We had a famility friend die in Tikrit yesterday...I just can't pay attention for a while.
I didn't mean that I wouldn't pay attention to Iraq...just the stupid Falluja story, unless I am getting information from CENTCOM or Rumsfeld.
The media has ceased to be believable.
And I am deeply sorry for the loss of your friend. My condolences to you and to the family, and I will pray for them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
The thing that's new here is that millions of Americans saw with their own eyes how our so-called "mainstream media" distorted everything during the initial invasion a year ago, to make it seem like our forces were bogged down in some 'quagmire' when in fact nothing of the sort was happening.