Night In Fallujah

Before the Marines can go in, the bombs have to come out. An exclusive first-hand report on combat operations in Iraq by Teflon Don, a soldier serving in the field, who blogs at the award-winning Acute Politics. via PJM

Also, heavy armor arrives in Baghdad

Surge on, except for the America hating feckless jerks aka libruls. They have a note from their San Fran Nanny allowing them to not support the troops.

Comments

[southdakotaboy]

Well more good news from Iraq that will be denied as such by the libs on this site. I just saw an ABC clip over on Ace of Spades that talks about how things are getting better over there. You know when MSM is having to admit it quailifiers and all, things have to be getting at least 2x better.
What are all the libs going to do when they can't hide the truth anymore?

[Victor]

Oh my. Its been more than 4 years and they are STILL bombing in Iraq? What was that carrier landing with the silly little sign all about then? I thought that the US WON??? I'm just glad that this silliness will be over in a year.

[southdakotaboy]

Main line battle formations of the Iraqi Army no longer able to mount large scale organized resistance = Mission Acomplished. Now we have moved on to other things, when are you leftists going to figure that little detail out.

[Victor]

Oh, so you flag-wavers wiped out the resistance. Good for you! Care to explain why stuff like this is still going on after 4 YEARS???

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/05/iraq.main/index.html

[Terry Gain]

"this silliness will be over in a year."

Of course you mean Bush's war (which your party voted for but the last thing we expect from a leftist is a scintilla of honesty).

What I wish would just go away is you and your support for al Qaeda- of course silliness doesn't quite describe that.

[Terry Gain]

If you knew anything about insurgencies you would know they aren't usually wiped out in 4 years so take your sophomoric timetable and shove it.

[scarshapedstar]

"Of course you mean Bush's war (which your party voted for but the last thing we expect from a leftist is a scintilla of honesty)."

I coulda sworn that at the time, the AUMF was framed by Bush as a bargaining chip that nobody would consider possibly using except in the case of absolute last resort.

Am I dreaming, or was he lying?

[southdakotaboy]

Victor before the Mission Acomplished sign Iraq had division sized tank units, massed artillery formations, something of an navy, and what was left of an airforce. After the Mission Acomplished sign they had none of those things plus the previous government could no longer enforce its laws in a systematic way. That part is over, done , finished etc.. we have moved into something else. If you can't grasp a simple military fact like that, you have no reason to be calling my education into question just because I'm not obsessed with spelling.

[Victor]

What I wish would just go away is you and your support for al Qaeda- of course silliness doesn't quite describe that.

Huh? Perhaps you should be getting hooked on phonics along with the seer from South Dakota.

And yes, it is Bush's failed silly war. Isn't he the guy who (in incomplete sentences of course) told the faithful to 'stay the course'????

Of course silliness doesn't quite describe the extent of failure that you cons and your 'leader' have brought upon America in Iraq.

[Hard Right]

"Silly" doesn't begin to describe the extent of your mental illness, Victor. Interesting choice of names since the left is all about surrender.

For you leftards, are you actually saying we didn't crush the Iraqi army and topple Sadam from power? Because that is what "Mission Accomplished" meant. Like I said, the inbred left just isn't capable of grasping the most basic facts.

[vetter]

Come on you guys...Scarsh & Victoria just wanna support the troops by mocking their efforts, demanding bizarre "time tables" for a war (!!!), then they wanna deny it's a war at all, then, of course BLAME BUSH, then put words in his mouth, then deny their party's support for it when it was politically viable, then then then...These "people" are idiots! It's funny to debate them just to watch them fall all over themselves but really now...

[Victor]

Oh my, the HEAVY ARMOR has arrived in Baghdad!! After only 4 YEARS!!! Let us rejoice, cons!! In another 10 years John McCain may be able to walk down a street in the green zone with only 50 soldiers around him. Victory is around the corner!!!

[mkultra]

30,000 troops by the end of 2003 ... Oil revenues will pay for the war ... the insurgency is in its last throes ... we've turned the corner ... etc.

We've heard it all before wingnuts.

Right now US troops are being used by the Shia majority to fight its civil war against the Sunni insurgency. We are pawns of the Shia who, in turn, are pawns of the Iranians.

We're getting played. Americans are dying to advance Iranian interests in Iraq. And the wingnuts seemingly have no problem with that.

From Scripps:

****

By MARTIN SCHRAM
Tuesday, April 03, 2007

They're back.

The Mahdi Army, the militia once solely controlled by the devoutly anti-America Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, has reportedly oozed back into the Sadr City section of Baghdad that is a prime target of the new U.S. strategy the Bush administration calls a surge.

What that means is that _ despite the way-too-early pronouncements of success by President Bush's top spinners (not to mention Sunday's desperation overreach by Joyless John McCain, which we'll discuss later) _ we may soon get our first real look at whether Bush's surge is working.

For seven weeks, U.S. troops had cautiously crept (never surged) into Sadr City with a goal of ridding that low-income Shia neighborhood of a militia that has waged death and disruption in what is now clearly an Iraqi civil war. U.S. forces suffered few casualties. Indeed, they engaged in few clashes of urban combat.

Bush officials cited the low casualty levels as evidence that the controversial surge _ a buildup that will now total more than 30,000 new U.S. troops _ seemed to be working.

But we know to beware of government statistics. Robert McNamara taught us (the hard way) that governments can use statistics in wartime to create a paint-by-the-numbers rosy picture that bears no resemblance to war-zone reality. And that's what just happened in Iraq's Sadr City. It is now clear that when the U.S. troops entered that sector, the Shia militia just disappeared among the civilian population in the initial days of the U.S. surge.

Only a week ago did the new ominous reality surface. And even then, it surfaced in a way that most Americans may not yet know it. "Militiamen return to Sadr City," said the Page One headline in The Washington Times, one of the few newspapers that played the story where it belonged. The lead by correspondent Sharon Behn reported:

"Shi'ite militiamen, who melted away from Baghdad when U.S. and Iraqi troops began their security crackdown seven weeks ago, are rolling back into the city with fresh Iranian training, Iraqi and other officials said.

"It is not clear whether the radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is in control of the newly trained group, which some Iraqis describe as a 'secret army' trained and equipped by Iran."

****

Wingnuts heart Iranians.

[southdakotaboy]

I just love how people like Victor never seem to think that anyone else should have the chance at having a democratic government. It seems rather racist to me that they use the same language as the old time Klan used to.

[Phoenix]

"Shi'ite militiamen, who melted away from Baghdad when U.S. and Iraqi troops began their security crackdown seven weeks ago, are rolling back into the city with fresh Iranian training, Iraqi and other officials said."

Nothing could be better news than this. This means we get them before the libs make us skulk home in retreat. Perfect.

[Victor]

Hmm, why does the phonically-challenged winger from the high plains keep making references to 'racism' and the 'Klan'? Did he see it on Fox or something? Perhaps he saw a crop circle and it told him about this? We may never know...

[vetter]

No, Victoria, we know right now. It's because your grandmother, Zifknob, got a little flustered after getting handed his ass one to many times here and he accidentally outed himself as a racist, anti-brown person bigot. AND he followed it up with a nice link to some rancidly homophobic "humor" from some lefty ass-bucket. So we like to remind ourselves here that ya'll are a bunch of racist/bigot/homophobe sexist braindead hateful chimps. It's fun!

[southdakotaboy]

You know why is it that people from large metro areas think that Aliens are always landing out here. I have yet to see a crop circle, cow turned inside out or other signs of ET visits.
I have however seen cows struck by lightning, which in case you've never seen happen is rather exciting in a kind of " holy s**t did you just see that" way.
Ranching and farming is very dangerous work for those of you who do not know. With in the last two years three people I personal knew died in ag related accidents. One fell from a roof, one was burned alive when he lost controle of the grain truck he was driving and the last was a friend of mine who slipped in a grain storage bin and went under (the grain fills the lungs).

[Zifnab]

"It's because your grandmother, Zifknob, got a little flustered after getting handed his ass one to many times here and he accidentally outed himself as a racist, anti-brown person bigot."

Amazing. I don't even have to be in the thread and I get all the warmth and love vetter can manage to bring together in his soft, happy heart.

Please link to racism. K, thx!

[LOL]

Fine, go ahead and laugh, appeasers, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. If we pull out of Iraq then jihadists will be getting drunk, taking our dogs for walks in the rain, and putting them in the microwave to dry them off. By 2010 they’ll be burglarizing our houses and leaving nothing behund but our toothbrushes and our cameras, and we’ll continue using our toothbrushes and then weeks later when we get the film developed there’ll be pictures of the jihadists sticking our toothbrushes up their butts.

[Victor]

Wait, isn't that the 'decider' holding hands with Bandar Bush's boss???

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/04/images/20050425-8_hw9v0295jasjpg-1-515h.html

Only from a former cheerleader...

[Hard Right]

"Oh my, the HEAVY ARMOR has arrived in Baghdad!! After only 4 YEARS!!!"

You really think it's never been there before? Unbelievable.

MKUltra? If you mean your on mind altering drugs I would believe it. Let's see...terrorists got the sectarian violence to the levels we saw. Al Sadr struck back until we shut him down. Our goal is to keep Iraq from becomming a terrorist haven/operating base-which we have done. Yet you think we are advancing Shia interests? Uh huh.

As for the militiamen, they hardly got away clean. You didn't check to see how many and who we arrested of them. You went only for the article that supported your views. Surprise. Some are coming back Iranian trained. Ooooooo, we'd better surrender now while we still can. Then again, if that's even true. Being the far left loon Schram is, it's no surprise he tries to spin the surge as being a failure. Wonder what his source is? Sunni stringers? Shia militiamen running their mouths to the brave reporters who never leave the Green Zone?

[Victor]

Umm, if your 'leader' has already 'won' in Iraq (you know, Mission Accomplished, etc) why is it necessary to deploy heavy armor in Baghdad 4 years later?

[southdakotaboy]

Victor once again you fail to understand very simple concepts. The Mission Acomplished sign dealt with a different mission. It was the destruction of the Republican Guard and the regular army.
What we are dealing with now is keeping to sectarian groups from going after each other and the new government. Tanks come in very handy as a tool of intimidation. What is being done in Baghdad right now is secure and hold and nothing says " I hold this place" like parking an Abrhams tank on that little bit of dirt.
Victor until you can start to understand things like that you are not going to make much sense.

[Zifnab]

"Victor once again you fail to understand very simple concepts. The Mission Acomplished sign dealt with a different mission."

See, all this time I was under the impression that "mission accomplished" never really existed and was put up as a prank by rowdy sailors.

Or was it that "mission accomplish" indicated... oh, I'll just quote Bush on this... "an end to major combat operations in Iraq."

[southdakotaboy]

Zifnab, one more time since you to seem to be unable to unerstand something that is rather simple. There are no more large scale enemy units left in Iraq to fight our army. The old Iraqi army was disbanded its done, gone, kaput etc...
We at the present time are fighting several different engagements. We are fighting sectarian millitias that, for the most part, are lightly armed. We are fighting a terrorist organization that fights as small units or cells. These are radically different from the fighting we did during the invasion of Iraq. During the invasion the Iraqi Armed Forces deployed large scale tank formations in several important battles. They also used large artillery units to attack or forces at various times. At no time since then have the insurgents used corps or division sized troop units in concerted opperations. At best some millitia units have made company sized attacks. They have not used armor are heavy artillery.

[Terry Gain]

"an end to major combat operations in Iraq."

And so it was.

[charles]

"See, all this time I was under the impression that "mission accomplished" never really existed and was put up as a prank by rowdy sailors."

you have now proven you are an idiot or willfully obtuse

either way any comment you make from know on is a waste of time to read

but i already knew that

welcome to scrollover territory

[Zifnab]

That's it Charles, SouthD, with your sexy typing and your indignant attitude. Give me what we all want to hear. Combat Operations are a success. "Mission Accomplished" was the end of a major victory. Bush has done a fantastic job.

http://www.liegirls.com/

Lie to me, baby.

[tally]

libtards bite me, i'm so sick of your shit.

President Bill Clinton
December 16, 1998

Good evening. Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors. Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.
Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.

I want to explain why I have decided, with the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, to use force in Iraq; why we have acted now; and what we aim to accomplish. Six weeks ago, Saddam Hussein announced that he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors called UNSCOM. They are highly professional experts from dozens of countries. Their job is to oversee the elimination of Iraq's capability to retain, create and use weapons of mass destruction, and to verify that Iraq does not attempt to rebuild that capability. The inspectors undertook this mission first 7.5 years ago at the end of the Gulf War when Iraq agreed to declare and destroy its arsenal as a condition of the cease-fire.

The international community had good reason to set this requirement. Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them. Not once, but repeatedly. Unleashing chemical weapons against Iranian troops during a decade-long war. Not only against soldiers, but against civilians, firing Scud missiles at the citizens of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran. And not only against a foreign enemy but even against his own people, gassing Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq.

The international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again. The United States has patiently worked to preserve UNSCOM as Iraq has sought to avoid its obligation to cooperate with the inspectors. On occasion, we've had to threaten military force, and Saddam has backed down. Faced with Saddam's latest act of defiance in late October, we built intensive diplomatic pressure on Iraq backed by overwhelming military force in the region.

The U.N. Security Council voted 15 to zero to condemn Saddam's actions and to demand that he immediately come into compliance. Eight Arab nations -- Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman -- warned that Iraq alone would bear responsibility for the consequences of defying the U.N..........

This situation presents a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere. The international community gave Saddam one last chance to resume cooperation with the weapons inspectors. Saddam has failed to seize the chance. And so we had to act and act now. Let me explain why.

First, without a strong inspection system, Iraq would be free to retain and begin to rebuild its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs in months, not years.

Second, if Saddam can cripple the weapons inspection system and get away with it, he would conclude that the international community -- led by the United States -- has simply lost its will. He will surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction, and someday -- make no mistake -- he will use it again as he has in the past.

Third, in halting our air strikes in November, I gave Saddam a chance, not a license. If we turn our backs on his defiance, the credibility of U.S. power as a check against Saddam will be destroyed. We will not only have allowed Saddam to shatter the inspection system that controls his weapons of mass destruction program, we also will have fatally undercut the fear of force that stops Saddam from acting to gain domination in the region.

That is why, on the unanimous recommendation of my national security team -- including the vice president, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the secretary of state and the national security adviser -- I have ordered a strong, sustained series of air strikes against Iraq. They are designed to degrade Saddam's capacity to develop and deliver weapons of mass destruction, and to degrade his ability to threaten his neighbors.

At the same time, we are delivering a powerful message to Saddam. If you act recklessly, you will pay a heavy price. We acted today because, in the judgment of my military advisers, a swift response would provide the most surprise and the least opportunity for Saddam to prepare.

If we had delayed for even a matter of days from Chairman Butler's report, we would have given Saddam more time to disperse his forces and protect his weapons. Also, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins this weekend. For us to initiate military action during Ramadan would be profoundly offensive to the Muslim world and, therefore, would damage our relations with Arab countries and the progress we have made in the Middle East. That is something we wanted very much to avoid without giving Iraq a month's head start to prepare for potential action against it.

Finally, our allies, including Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain, concurred that now is the time to strike. I hope Saddam will come into cooperation with the inspection system now and comply with the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions.

But we have to be prepared that he will not, and we must deal with the very real danger he poses. So we will pursue a long-term strategy to contain Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction and work toward the day when Iraq has a government worthy of its people. First, we must be prepared to use force again if Saddam takes threatening actions, such as trying to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction or their delivery systems, threatening his neighbors, challenging allied aircraft over Iraq or moving against his own Kurdish citizens. The credible threat to use force, and when necessary, the actual use of force, is the surest way to contain Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program, curtail his aggression and prevent another Gulf War.

The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world. The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people.

Bringing change in Baghdad will take time and effort. We will strengthen our engagement with the full range of Iraqi opposition forces and work with them effectively and prudently.

The decision to use force is never cost-free. Whenever American forces are placed in harm's way, we risk the loss of life. And while our strikes are focused on Iraq's military capabilities, there will be unintended Iraqi casualties. Indeed, in the past, Saddam has intentionally placed Iraqi civilians in harm's way in a cynical bid to sway international opinion.

We must be prepared for these realities. At the same time, Saddam should have absolutely no doubt if he lashes out at his neighbors, we will respond forcefully. Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction.

If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them......

May God bless and protect the brave men and women who are carrying out this vital mission and their families.

And may God bless America.

[BobInStamford]

Notice that a real president didn't invade Iraq in 1998. It took a cowardly male cheerleader to do that in 2003. And here we are, 4 years later. Many declarations of 'victory' and 'surges' and 'last throes' and 'deadenders' but on we go. Stay the course, brave patriots. Only 1 more year until the Iraq Adventure is over. You might say that it is in its 'last throes'.

[tally]

bob, that's your hero telling you about the danger of iraq. guess you can't read f-tard.