Slaughter In Fallujah 'Will Not Make US Wobble'

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 4-2-2004 | Alec Russelll

[blam]

Slaughter in Fallujah 'will not make US wobble'

By Alec Russell in Washington
(Filed: 02/04/2004)

Washington vowed yesterday it would not "wobble" in its determination to succeed in Iraq as the nation absorbed, shuddered over and then put to one side the horrific images of brutalised and burned bodies of four civilian contractors.

A wounded demonstrator in Basra is carried away by friends

The hideous photographs of Iraqis beating two charred American corpses with shoes and then dangling them from a bridge after they were ambushed in the town of Fallujah dominated the front pages of American newspapers.

President George W Bush will not want too many more of the nation's breakfasts disturbed in this way in an election year. These were the most gruesome prime-time images since the invasion of Iraq last March and they inevitably prompted parallels with 1993, when images of dead American soldiers being dragged through Mogadishu after a Black Hawk helicopter was shot down prompted a rapid withdrawal from Somalia.

Yet in a sign of how America has stiffened its spine since the September 11 attacks - and grimly accustomed itself to bodybags since the Iraq war - the principal debate yesterday was not over a pullout but rather over how to punish the perpetrators.

Paul Bremer addresses police recruits in Baghdad

"We are not going to withdraw, we are not going to be run out," Colin Powell, the secretary of state, said. "America has the ability to stay, fight an enemy and defeat an enemy," he said. "We also know sometimes to achieve a noble purpose it does take the loss of life."

For once in this increasingly acrimonious election campaign, Democrats and Republicans spoke with one voice. However strong the feeling in the Democratic grassroots that the Iraq war was a mistake, there is broad agreement in Washington that the Somalian pullout set a disastrous precedent.

Senator John Kerry, Mr Bush's Democratic challenger, said: "United in our sadness, we are also united in our resolve that our enemies will not prevail."

The capitulation of the world's most formidable army to Somali gunmen heralded a prolonged suspicion of foreign entanglements. It also led to endless introspection in the media that broadcasting the footage of the dead Americans in Mogadishu had forced the administration's hand and unduly influenced foreign policy.

In marked contrast, the networks initially held off broadcasting footage of the desecrations of the corpses in Fallujah. Only late on Wednesday night did they start to show some of the scenes but not the most graphic images.

Mr Powell said that, far from wobbling, most Americans would continue to back the fight in Iraq. And the sentiments of the crowds at the Vietnam War memorial yesterday broadly supported this view. For many if not most Americans, Iraq and the fight against terrorism are one and the same thing.

Dan Shelton, a 6ft 4in Texan, was making his first visit to the symbol of failed American militarism.

He believes the White House claim that media coverage of Iraq does not tell the whole story. "I saw the images on the night's news. They were very nasty but that was done by a very few people.

"It was done to play on people's emotions and you can't let that happen. It's not representative of what's going on."

A group of pensioners visiting from Minnesota backed his view. But he is, of course, from Texas, Mr Bush's home state.

With the number of deaths in Iraq nearing 600, Mr Bush will appreciate that, despite his high ratings as a firm leader, patience over Iraq will not last forever. A poll yesterday said only 49 per cent approved of his handling of Iraq while 46 per cent disapproved.

Krystal Radcliffe, 37, from Toledo, Ohio, asked: "How much longer can this go on?"

• American troops had retrieved the bodies of four contractors killed in Fallujah, a senior US military official said yesterday.

[kcar]

President George W Bush will not want too many more of the nation's breakfasts disturbed in this way in an election year.

Think this smarmy British "intellectual" leftist might have constructed this sentence with a little more sensitiivty?

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[GeronL]

Mike Reagan had the same idea as I did "Neutron Bomb"... but then he said something about sending in a new Adam and Eve...

[txhurl]

Krystal Radcliffe, 37, from Toledo, Ohio, asked: "How much longer can this go on?"

Well, Krystal, if George is allowed to finish the job, it might go on another 2-3 years before the terrorist slime is extinct.

If anybody else has to finish the job, it may well take 700 years.

[hauerf]

< mood sniveling = on > Krystal Radcliffe, 37, from Toledo, Ohio, asked: "How much longer can this go on?" < /mood >

Women's suffrage ... whose idea was that anyway?

[McGavin999]

Our media "protected" us against seeing the charred and dismembered bodies of the 3,000 people who were in the WTC, but they joyfully displayed these noble civilian volunteers being drug through the streets because our media has no conscience and no moral core. It had the opposite effect of what they were hoping for though. American are not cowards, it was merely Clinton in office who caused us to cut and run in Mogadishu. That craven coward helped to give the terrorists the never to hit us again. That's not going to happen again!

[McGavin999]

Let me add something here for any of the media who might be lurking. We are going to take those pictures that you guys so obligingly took and we are going to use them to identify those who did this. We are also going to let the Iraqi people know that we used those photos to catch the bad guys. It might not be too safe for you to be taking pictures of our dead the next time. YOU CREEPS!

[Hank Rearden]

Talk, talk, talk.

Blah, blah, blah.

[ThirstyMan]

Exactly! well said. The fact that the cameramen were in position to film these atrocities while the American forces weren't anywhere to be found indicates a collusion by the press. Make them pay too!

[McGavin999]

What a piece of crap you are. I suppose you're one of those who thinks Halliburton is "evil" too.

[JCB]

So dumba$$ - Why do most Iraqis oppose such attacks? Could it be that the anti-war commies like you don't speak for Iraqis???

[wardaddy]

Look #11.

It's a newbie arsewipe here to preach to us about our dead kinsmen and his lack of appreciation for the situation.

Guess he viewed Johnny Spann as "scum" too.

[Squantos]

She's gone !

[risk]

Missed it. We know the real trainwreck is not the nomads with nukes; it's westerners who want to throw palm fronds at their feet.

[wardaddy]

Looks like somebody bagged him while I was typing...sorry.

He referred to our dead as scum since they were private contractors or mercs in his view.

A real POS but I hate to rat.

What does Travis say....ESAD..lol

He calls himself "Look It's A Newbie" FYI

[wardaddy]

Sorry....little slow on the trigger tonight.