Posted on 11/18/2004 8:52:16 PM PST by PajamaTruthMafia
CAMP FALLUJA, Iraq
Every time I visit Iraq, I leave asking myself the same question: If you total up all the positives and negatives, where does the balance come out? I'd say the score is still 4 to 4. We can still emerge with a decent outcome. And the whole thing could still end very badly. There's only one thing one can say for sure today: you won't need to wait much longer for the tipping point. Either the elections for a new governing body happen by the end of January, as scheduled, and the rout of Saddam loyalists in Falluja is consolidated and extended throughout the Sunni triangle, or not. If it's the former, there are still myriad challenges ahead, but you can be somewhat hopeful. If it's the latter, we've got a total fiasco on our hands.
I came out to the Falluja front in a small press pool accompanying the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, who flew in to inspect the toughest problems in Iraq firsthand. Most of the fighting in Falluja was over by the time we arrived at this headquarters compound, although the tom-tom beat of 155-millimeter howitzers, still pumping rounds into the city, was constant. Here are the questions I came with and the answers I took away:
How important is taking Falluja? Huge. Falluja was to the Iraqi insurgency what Afghanistan was to Osama bin Laden. It was the safe haven where militants could, with total impunity, plan operations, stockpile weapons and connect the suicide bombers from abroad with their Iraqi handlers. That's gone. One arms cache alone found here had 49,000 pieces of ordnance, ranging from mortars to ammo rounds. Another arms cache blown up last week kept exploding for 45 minutes after it was hit, a senior U.S. officer said.
What happens next in Falluja? The plan is for Iraqi Army, police and National Guard units to move in, restore order and hold the place so the insurgents can't retake it and voting can be conducted in January. Whether the Iraqi Army can do that is unclear. Don't believe any of the big numbers that people in Washington throw around about how many Iraqi security people we have trained. Those numbers are meaningless.
The reality is this: Where you have individual Iraqi police, National Guard and Army commanders who have bravely stepped forward to serve the new Iraq and are willing to lead - despite intimidation efforts by insurgents - you have effective units. Where you don't have committed Iraqi leaders, all you have are Iraqi men collecting paychecks who will flee at the first sign of danger. The good news: there are pockets of Iraqi leaders emerging throughout the Army and police. The bad news: there are still way too few of them.
Then do we have enough U.S. troops? No way. U.S. commanders are constantly having to make hard choices between deploying troops to quell a firefight in one place or using them to prevent one from breaking out in another. With two months before elections and the campaign about to start, Iraq remains highly insecure. And with most aid workers having pulled out, U.S. forces have to do everything. Units of the First Cavalry in Baghdad might be fighting militants in Sadr City in the morning, dealing with sewage problems in the afternoon and teaching democracy in the evening. Some of these young soldiers already have three Purple Hearts from having survived that many grenade attacks in Baghdad.
What have we learned from the many insurgents captured in Falluja? A vast majority are Iraqi Sunnis, with only a few foreign fighters. This is an Iraqi Sunni rebellion, but a senior Iraqi official told me that they had discovered Saddam loyalists who were using Aleppo, Syria, to regroup and plan operations.
Bottom line? Iraq is a country still on life support, and U.S. troops are the artificial lungs and heart. At the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Babil Province, which I visited, 211 marines have been injured in fighting in the past few months. But 180 of them insisted on returning to duty after being injured. U.S. forces still have a strong will to win.
But another thing remains impressively strong: The insurgents will go to any lengths to intimidate Iraqis away from joining the new government. Too many people, from cleaning women to deputy ministers, are being shot. The insurgents' strategy is intimidation. The U.S. strategy is Iraqification. This is the struggle - and the intimidators are doing way too well. Without a secure environment in which its new leadership can be elected and comfortably operate, Iraq will never be able to breathe on its own, and U.S. troops will have to be here forever.
I think it was AP.
hidden message? Good question,, can you imagine how many thousands of shots have been taken but none quite like this that I have seen?
It caught my eye as sort of a ghostly observer of the aftermath of the goings on... even as it is a product of them as well.
OOps, AFP not AP.
What this goober never bothers to note is that it's woefully easy to kill innocent people. Does he ever condemn this abhorrent practice? No. He comes across in my view as expressing near admiration for this terrorism.
I found out long ago. But exactly how many times will military commanders need to say "No" before you're satisfied?
"Iraqis instead are resisting against terrorism and are not carrying out attacks, which instead are the work of foreign infiltrators. I have stressed this before: Saudis, Jordanians, Syrians and Sudanese have entered Iraq. Prime Minister Allawi has said this as well. And clearly, there are also Iraqi collaborators who, for money, help the terrorist hide."
--Archbishop of of Kirkuk Louis Sako
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1283688/posts
No. He said major combat operations were concluded, but that the mission continues.
Do you actually read, or do you just repeat Dem talking points?
I read the article as being pretty square and upfront.
I think that some of you guys let your predjudices against the NYT and this guy distort your views. I thought the article was good. And I've been to Falluja.
So be it. I have no prejudices against Friedman, but I admittedly despise the anti American NY Times.
And I stand by my comment. Explicit or implicit admiration for terrorist tactics is unacceptable.
This, of course, is the major risk of our present course.
There is no evidence whatsoever that there is an "Iraqi people", much less that they are capable of self-government.
We wish that it were so, and in the absence of a heavy occupation force we pray that it is so, but it probably is not so.
You have invented that totally. It is not there.
Failure to condmen or condemn strongly enough is not admiration in any sort.
Baloney.
But another thing remains impressively strong: The insurgents will go to any lengths to intimidate Iraqis away from joining the new government. Too many people, from cleaning women to deputy ministers, are being shot. The insurgents' strategy is intimidation. The U.S. strategy is Iraqification. This is the struggle - and the intimidators are doing way too well.
You don't have to agree with me, but don't accuse me of making stuff up. Trips to Fallujah or not.
Memo to self : NEVER read Friedman,Ivins,Cohen,Dowd,et al, while trying to eat.
Wow. Here I am dealing with that stuff on a daily basis and you sit at home reading about it. I don't take offense and you do. What gives?
Can you say "Reading into it"?
Yeah, some of their intimidation is impressively effective. So does that mean I now admire them, too?
Death To all Islamofascist terrorists ~ Bump!
Only you can answer that one, Partner.
Since you are over there, I would trust your judgement.....a reporter from the NY Times is not to be trusted.
Like just about everything coming from the New York Times, this is opinion, not news.
Pssst... Hey Freidman, your team lost the election.
Fasten your seatbelts.
and I don't mean to sound negative about this - I think we will pull it off too. but we need to work at it. these iraqi forces can't just be out there loading relief supplies into trucks and directing traffic. they have to be willing to fight, and die, like our soldiers are, every day. and while our forces have to abide by these sometimes insane rules of engagement, these iraqi forces need to instill fear in these insurgents.
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