Posted on 09/15/2006 7:31:32 AM PDT by jmc1969
Iraq's interior ministry has announced plans to increase security in Baghdad by digging trenches around the city, and surrounding it with checkpoints.
The plan was unveiled amid continuing violence in the capital. At least 49 bodies have been recovered from the city's streets in the past 24 hours.
A spokesman said the security plan was designed to prevent insurgents from getting into and out of Baghdad.
But correspondents say it could take months to dig trenches round the city.
The Iraqi capital has a circumference of around 80km (50 miles).
Brigadier Abdul Karim of the interior ministry told the BBC that hundreds of minor roads would be sealed off under the plan, so that the city could only be accessed via 28 checkpoints.
He said equipment to detect weapons and explosives would be installed at key locations.
The plan, he said, would start coming into effect in less than three weeks.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Moat is good. Prepare to flood the moat!
The forces of violence and repression are strong in the mid-east is what the violence tells us ... but didnt 9/11 clue us into that fact already?
Our military is doing a very good job and its wrong to criticize them simply because the terrorist insurgents keep killing innocent Iraqis and Iraqi and coalition security forces.
not at all. D-Day was a one day operation and was needed to gain foothold into Europe. To comare D-Day to the time weve alredy been in Iraq is dumb
US denies plan for giant trench around Baghdad
(Reuters)
16 September 2006
BAGHDAD - The US military denied reports on Saturday that Iraq plans to dig a giant ring of trenches around the city of Baghdad.
Iraq’s Interior Ministry announced earlier this week that it plans to set up 28 checkpoints that would allow controlled access to the city, while closing off other roads as part of a security crackdown.
The New York Times quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman on Saturday as saying the Iraqis would also dig a giant trench around the city of seven million people.
“We’re going to build a trench around Baghdad so we can control the exits and entrances so people will be searched properly,” Brigadier General Abdul Karim Khalaf told the newspaper. He said the trench would run across farmland and other open areas.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?col=§ion=focusoniraq&xfile=data/focusoniraq/2006/September/focusoniraq_September99.xml
But Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said the description sounded like an exaggeration of a plan that mostly would rely on existing terrain features to ensure that traffic moved through the 28 checkpoints.
“No doubt there will be some trenches involved in this, but to say there is going to be a moat around the city is a bit of a stretch,” Johnson said.
“They’ve called it a trench around Baghdad. Really what this is, is there’s a series of obstacles that the Iraqi government are planning, and we’re working with them, to ensure movement through checkpoints, to keep terrorists and extremists and criminals from using those (other) routes,” Johnson said.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?col=§ion=focusoniraq&xfile=data/focusoniraq/2006/September/focusoniraq_September99.xml
Stupidest thing that I have ever heard.
If the Iraqis were to dig trenches around Baghdad, I sure as hell hope it will be after our guys and ladies are out of Baghdad, and for that matter out of Iraq and back home period.
Rats, ya beat me to it :)
Stupidest thing that I have ever heard.
Precisely what was said to General Washington about trying to defend New York City.
Yes, it would be more accurate to compare it to the Battle of the Bulge or the Pacific Theatre of WWII, or the Revolutionary War.
OTOH, just about nothing beats our Civil War for American casualties.
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