Marines Prepare for Fallujah Pull Back (Fox Reports NO PEACE DEAL in Fallujah)

AP ^ | Thu, Apr 29, 2004 | Jayson Keyser

[Just mythoughts]

"Thank God, I was beginning to feel like a Frenchman."


When I first hear Fox and their "ALERT", their sources a LATimes "in-bed" and the AP, my thoughts were similar, sounded a bit JFKerrish.

[Eurotwit]

Another fantastic report from Wretchard.

Thanks.

[Miss Marple]

Further reporting from Fox.

Emphasis on the fact that this is not a pull-out, according to their Pentagon sources. (I tend to trust Fox's sources.) Further, there are several tracks of negotiations on-going, one of which might use Iraqi troops under coalition command.

I feel I must also emphasize here that the negotiations are NOT between the Marines and the insurgents. The negotiations are between the city officials and elements of the coalition, the Iraqi governing council, and sheiks influential in the area. The idea (again now quoting Fox) is to have a peaceful resolution and neutralize the insurgents; also the Pentagon says that what we have been seeing on the TV in Fallujah is NOT a full-scale offensive, but rather targeted hits in reponse to attacks from the bad guys, which have happened despite the cease-fire.

Having re-read this story, I see that AP is basing most of it on what Tony Perry told CNN. I think that's a little too much filtering, myself.

[meenie]

You can slice it any way you want but this is not a story of victory for the occupation. The Marines did their duty, you can be sure of that. There was a political decision made to move them out. They did not get their perimeter overrun.

Were the amount of civilian casualties too excessive in the court of world opinion? This will only embolden more resistance. The decision maker that made this decision will have to make the decision that we leave Iraq with our tail between our legs. That is the only reasonable conclusion. This military operation has been characterized by poor decisions and intelligence.

[Agent Smith]

Carpet bombing from B52s is not an exact science. The Marines have to withdraw to a safe distance.

[Semper Paratus]

Down in Njaf the terrorists are apparently being picked off one be one. Maybe that could be a template for Fa-lou-ja.

[mikhailovich]

I understand this to be a cease fire, a mutual agreement to stop the fighting, and to turn over patrols to the Iraqi Army. June 1 is quickly coming. Like it or not, Bush has pledged to turn things over to the Iraqis by that date. From a political standpoint, plowing into Fallujah at this late date would disrupt the June 1 deadline. It's inevitable.

[Owen]

It is possible the AC130 hits the other night destroyed the enemy leadership and their ammo supply and given that they don't particularly exist anymore, the Iraqi force can keep the peace there.

The size of those explosions justify a possibility that those who killed the American contractors are dead.

[Mr. Lucky]

You're putting lipstick on a pig.

[Becki]

Bogdan, what do you hear about this one?

Becki

[cake_crumb]

Does this surprise anyone? A peace deal with be on our terms. We appear to be attempting an abject lesson to terrorists.

[FreeReign]

I feel I must also emphasize here that the negotiations are NOT between the Marines and the insurgents. The negotiations are between the city officials and elements of the coalition, the Iraqi governing council, and sheiks influential in the area.

(My Bold).

[Eurotwit]

We will see how this plays out. It'll be interesting to watch the Coalition press briefing today.

But as far as Tony Perry goes (and Brennan Byrne), I don't really see how they contradict the reporting from Fox all that much, except for the headline and the way the article is spinned. The items reported as facts seem to correspond fairly well with the new reports from Fox. IMHO it is AP more than Perry who is responsible for the spinning.

I guess I am so used to having to decode the truth from the heavily biased Norwegian media, that I don't even notice the spin anymore. I quickly try to wade through the opiniated crap to discern the few tidbits of "news" that is contained in the overall article.

I fully trust the President and the people on the ground making these decisions.

There is really no one ideal solution, but if I am to venture my own uneducated (and uninformed) opinion, I would say that an Iraqi solition to the Fallujah situation does seem to be preferable.

BTW. I did not post this story under breaking news. Someone else put it there.

Cheers.

[cake_crumb]

"It seems to me our left wing press has moved the objective of 'Capturing those who killed and mutilated the bodies of Americans!' to 'How do we prevent the destruction of Fallujah?'. "

I've noticed too. The same press that has been intimating that armchair generals might try to run the war from home and turn Iraq into the Next Viet Nam appear to demanding that armchair generals at home prevent the destruction of Falluja at all cost, turning Iraq into the Next Vietnam.

[CatoRenasci]

I'm also beginning to think that putting an Iraqi face on the confrontation in Fallujah has its advantages. As long as we maintain the cordon sanitaire around Fallujah, letting Iraqis do the dirty work has two advantages: 1) it's not our boys killing Iraqis, and 2) their brutality (since they won't be able to do things with our precision and won't care that they can't) will make us look good.

Further, as long as the insurgents are isolated, better they're bottled up there than making trouble elsewhere. Eventually, they'll come out to play, and they'll get off'ed.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Evacuate the woman and children and nuke the site. We have Kerry, the UN, Hillary, the leftists, the Dems and the peaceniks on our backs no matter what we do.

[TomGuy]

We lost....at least in Fallujah. We didn't loose because we don't have the military means, we lost because we don't have the guts to do what it would take to fix that stinkhole problem.

Too much politicking and diplomacy before the war has been won. The 'insurgents' will only be more bold, if they perceive a win. Somalia emboldened OLB to commit 9-11---bin Laden admitted that.

[Captain Kirk]

Well, Bush agrees with you. The problem is that Iraqis run like scared rabbits when ever pushed to the front.

[cake_crumb]

Weird knee jerking on this first page. Does the morning crowd have so little faith in the judgement of our military?

[FreeReign]

Too much politicking and diplomacy before the war has been won.

More likely, the politicking and diplomacy is being used to try and win the war.

JMO.