***Operation Iraqi Freedom - Situation Room - Day 5 - LIVE THREAD***

Everywhere! | 23 Mar 2003 | An.American.Expatriate

[null and void]

Good Morning.

This is the Daily Thread of Operation Iraqi Freedom - LIVE THREAD.

It is designed for general conversation about the events of the day. In depth discussion of events should be left to individual threads - but links to the threads or other articles is highly encouraged. This allows us to stay abreast of the situation in general, while also providing a means of obtaining specific information.

Please have mercy on us dial up limited FReepers! Limit the big graphics, post links instead. A breif description of what the graphic is would help:

To all who helped this get started, thank you!

Special thanks to An.American.Expatriate for staring the daily threads, Mo1 for the screamer, the AdminMods for their tolerance, mhking for the video links, and, of course, Belly Girl...

[null and void]

Link back to old thread here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/872741/posts

Please have mercy on us dial up limited FReepers! Limit the big graphics, post links instead. A breif description of what the graphic is would help, like so:

Belly Girl: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/871873/posts

[Centurion2000]

Here she is ....

[null and void]

Mhking Live Video/Audio Feeds:
BBC News (Real - presently down)
BBC News (Real - 2nd feed)
CablePulse 24 - Toronto (WMV)
WSVN-TV/DT Miami (WMV - Fox Affiliate)
MSNBC/NBC (WMV/Feeds page)
Sky News (WMV - down)
Sky News(WMV/Copy-Paste)
CN8 Philadelphia (Real)
NWCN, Seattle/Portland (Real)
CNN via KGW/Portland (Real)

[Centurion2000]

heh .... this is 'prepping the battlethread" type stuff ... got the links and the pinup girl in early.

[SoldiersGirl]

nice job Poser.

[InShanghai]

I wonder who made post # 6000 on Day 4

[commish]

Good night again .. for real this time!

[B4Ranch]

Thank you, she looks like my daughter. Cute!

[LikeLight]

Guest on Fox, talked to people in Baghdad today . . . "other than huge explosions, everything here is perfectly normal" . . . I'm not kidding, this is what he says they told him!

[Petronski]

"Another day?
I am deeply
saddened."

[dogbyte12]

Has anybody ever seen Belly Girl and Tourist Guy in the same room? Just a thought to throw out there.

Should be very shortly til the first wave of b-52's drop their payload. Expect some booms, y'all with the bagdad camera with audio.

[Centurion2000]

Thank you, she looks like my daughter

You must be a very nervous father at times .... typically date nights.

[Mo1]

Operation Iraqi Freedom - Day 1 - LIVE THREAD
***Operation Iraqi Freedom - Situation Room - Day 2-LIVE THREAD***
***Operation Iraqi Freedom - Situation Room - Day 3-LIVE THREAD***
***Operation Iraqi Freedom - Situation Room - Day 4 - LIVE THREAD***

[mhking]

You're fast!!

It's time for me to go to bed...I'll catch everyone in the AM...

[GOPyouth]

I think the BUFFs are rotating now around the clock. They've shown them take off while others come in to land.

[Mo1]

Where did you come from .. I was just about to do a new thread .. LOL

[mhking]

Has anybody ever seen Belly Girl and Tourist Guy in the same room? Just a thought to throw out there.

Don't do that!!!

[MJY1288]

A tough day for us, but we all know our troops will carry on in their honor and liberate Iraq.

God Bless our Troops

God Bless America

[null and void]

*sigh* I'm way back at post 3742 on the old thread. I'm never gonna get caught up...

[Tree of Liberty]

Fox - Rick levanthal back live

[Tree of Liberty]

Fox - he's in south-central Iraq

[Cboldt]

-bump-

Why are these threads so sparse?

[Green]

Did you all hear what Alison said on Fox? I'm disgusted. She said American's were shocked and awed today when seeing American's captured as POWs and shown on tv...or something to that effect

[JayP56]

Any of the Buffs coming out of Diego Garcia??

[SoldiersGirl]

seriously she said that??

[GOPyouth]

I'm on Kazaa-lite downloading the Al-Jazeera clip. Hop on over there if you want to download it. Hopefully this is not mislabeled by the person putting this up.

[Tree of Liberty]

I'd presume so, but there's no camera there, only at Fairford.

[Consort]

Fox - he's in south-central Iraq

Safer than south-central L.A.

[lavrenti]

I wonder what the kill ratio is, too.

One disturbing thing, however. Reporters are coming upon Iraqis executed on the side of the road. The Baathists are on a mass murder spree, killing deserters and others.

After we take Baghdad we need SpecOps to focus on cleaning these bastards out. Fortunately these creeps number in the few thousands.

[AlextheWise1]

Figure they will release the enemy KIA totals or at least vehicles destroyed at the end of the war?

[Squantos]

Anyone picking up on Rick Leventhal's reports for FNC ? That boy is getting real tired ......

[Maigrey]

self-ping for tomorrow. I need some sleep!

[Green]

Yes! She was coming on at top of hour and gave her little introduction. It was in this that she said that little blurb. Disgusting.

[Mo1]

*sigh* I'm way back at post 3742 on the old thread. I'm never gonna get caught up...

LOL .. keep reading .. you might make it to 6000 by morning

[Henchster]

PRECISELY!

I'm sick of all the whiners crying about our casualties. They act like we're getting slaughtered, and the American public won't be able to take it. During WW2, American B-17 bomber crews stationed in England in 1942, (the Eighth Air Force,) lost 7 percent of its bombers on raids. Such high attrition rates meant the average bomber crew could expect to survive only 14 or 15 missions. Unfortunately, the standard tour of duty at that time was 25 missions!

Yet, today, our troops are actually safer in Iraq than citizens in the United States!

Impossible you say?

Here are our CURRENT Casualties:

FRAG: March 23 - Army officer killed by Muslim American soldier with hand grenade.

BATTLE: March 24 - Army maintenance crew of 12 - 7 dead, (including "executions,") 5 missing presumed captured.

March 20 - U.S. marine killed in Iraq, first killed in combat.

March 21 - Second U.S marine killed in Iraq.

ACCIDENTS: March 21 - Eight British soldiers from 3 Commando brigade and four U.S. marines are killed when a U.S. Marine CH-46E helicopter crashes in Kuwait, six km (10 miles) south of the Iraq border.

March 22 - Two Royal Navy Sea King helicopters collide in the northern Gulf. All seven crew members, including one American, were killed.

Current U.S. casualty count: 15 in four days +.

Here's an interesting tidbit: There have been 6 deaths of news reporters of camera crew members in the war! When you consider there are only a few thousand of them, those media types don't lead healthy lifestyles like our troops!

Just for reference, in the 1991 Gulf war we had 148 battle deaths, 145 nonbattle deaths, 467 wounded in action. We had more than 500,000 troops in theater for about 180 days. 129 of those fatalities were in one Scud missile strike on a barracks in Saudi Arabia. Without that one incident, our troops would have had a lower mortality rate than civilians at home.

Last December the NTSB said in a report on deaths in alchohol related traffic accidents that in 2001 17,448 were killed in alchohol related accidents, accounting for 41 percent of all U.S. traffic deaths. Therefore, the total traffic related deaths were 42,556 (17,448 divided by 0.41), which means on average over 116 (42,556 divided by 365 = 116.6) people die violent, bloody deaths on the roads each day. Per the census bureau, one person dies in the US every 11 seconds, which means 7,855 people die each day of all causes, more than a few of them in violent, bloody, murders.

Per the CDC, the annual death rate per 100,000 for 20-35 year olds would be just about 100, so the expected mortality for the 400,000 soldiers in Iraq would be a little more than one per day (400,000 /100,000 x 100 = 400 /365 = 1.1). If the average troop strength in Kuwait and Iraq was 200,000 (zero grading up ratably to 400,000 over the past three months), we would expect about 50 deaths (0.55 deaths per day x 90 days). This is conservative because the troop strength built very rapidly, not ratably. The correct number would be somewhat higher than 50; on the order of maybe 70.

The bottome line is that in the last 90 days of combat training, preparation, and actual combat, our troops have a lower mortality rate to this point than you or I sitting in front of our computers posting on Free Republic.

If you just watched CNN and listened to Tom Dashle, you'd think we were still flying B-17s against the Luftwaffe.

By the way, I'd like to thank FReeper Ironclad for the statistical data on U.S. mortality rates.

[GOPyouth]

I don't know. I would suppose they are down there.

[SoldiersGirl]

Man...she now falls below Greta and Helen on my tolerance scale.

[Mo1]

He does sound pretty tired ..

[Mike Darancette]

Does it seem that the Yraqi divisions around Baghdad are pulling back closer to the city?

[Tree of Liberty]

I watched it. He was just recounting the firefight he got caught up with about 18 hours ago.

[justshe]

I worry about all of them One report I saw from the field today said the troops and the journalists are averaging about 2 hours sleep a day.

That CAN'T be conducive to your 'reactive' speed.

Heck......at 4 hours I have trouble tying my shoes!

[SoldiersGirl]

Tom Daschle is deeply, deeply saddened by your comments.

[Green]

She's never been the brightest bulb they have on Fox but I never thought she was quite that bad. Now have no respect for her at all.

[Ophiucus]

Thanks for maintaining the feed list but I think we killed the Sky NEws feeds. The added hits seem to have flummoxed their server - a FReeping side effect, I'm afraid.

[Professional]

I'm pretty sure that the Iraqi information dude and his General were alluding to. The Info head of Iraq was saying that we would be shocked and awed. Pretty sure that is what he was getting at. Anybody else come to that conclusion? Of course, I have no idea what he meant about the swamp...

[B4Ranch]

Not really. Both girls introduce their dates to me before they leave the house. The boys are quite nervous about this old cowboy.

[Aggie Mama]

I heard on MSNBC that the bastards that took the POW's are loyal to one of Hussein's sons. That scared the crap out of me, especially for the female POW. The Baathists are frightening beyond belief.

We're going to have to do some major work in Tikrit.

[justshe]

EXCELLENT post. Please keep that handy and POST often. Thank you!

[JLS]

I thought Bob Woodward was pretty good on Fox tonight. I was surprised at the number of good points he made.