…the bombs bursting in air, gave proof thru the night that our flag was still there.
Oct 7, 2005 — BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Six U.S. Marines were killed by roadside bomb blasts during combat operations in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Friday, bringing the total U.S. military death toll to at least 1,948 since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
roadside bomb, ramadi (jim macmillan 2005)
A military statement said four marines died when a bomb went off in Gharma, near Falluja, on Thursday. Falluja, about 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, is a stronghold of Sunni Arab opposition to U.S. occupation and the Shi’ite-led government.
Two more marines were killed on Thursday by a roadside bomb while on patrol in the vicinity of Qaim near the Syrian border, where the U.S. forces are conducting a major combat operation aimed at flushing out militant fighters, a separate military statement said.
contact, ramadi (jim macmillan 2005)
An email from an Army officer serving in Ramadi, his battalion lost 11 in 10 days:
They make level IV side armor, too, that we don’t have. Of all the guys that have been shot and killed here, all have been through the side of the armor where there’s no plate. That’s where the snipers are aiming for, and hitting. my two guys who got hit by a sniper … one went through the side (no plate) and he survived by the grace of god. The other moved at the last second and the bullet hit the plate right no its edge.
searching for a sniper, mosul
Side armor is one thing. But Paul, we have no reserve here. Every avilable troop is on the line every day. We have no offensive capability because to launch an operation in one sector would mean pulling the troops out of another sector. While they are bullshitting with the numbers, we need 3 times as many troops as we have here just to be able to protect ourselves. We don’t have the people to clear out the bad neighborhoods, so we just keep going over there and getting killed, 1, 3 or 5 guys at a time.
patrol, samarra
And don’t get me started on the bankrupt leadership in theater. We know the enemy only does one thing well: IEDs. but they keep sending us everywhere up the roads in these stuipid vehicles. roads where you have no choice of what direction to travel. They’re slightly wider than the vehicle and raised. You’re such an easy target.
Where’s the air assualt infantry?? Why must we play right to the enemy’s strength 1000 times a day? We never try anything else.
Where are the apaches? As far as i can tell, we have one cobra and one huey … 40 year old technology at best. A platoon of apaches could end this thing in a week, b/c no one could stick their head out to shoot, or trigger an IED. We’re not even trying. It’s pathetic.
memorial camp, ramadi (jim macmillan 2005)
America! America! God shed his grace on thee, and crowned thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea…
‘War on terror’ costs U.S. $7B monthly: report
The ‘war on terror’ is costing Americans approximately $7 billion US every month. According to a new Congressional report, the bill could exceed half a trillion dollars by 2010.
The Washington-based Congressional Research Service says $5.9 billion of that monthly outlay is being spent on military operations in Iraq.
That’s a billion-dollar, 19 per cent increase from the Pentagon’s last estimate.
According to the report by one of Congress’ investigative arms, the estimated total of $570 billion US by 2010 is a conservative estimate that “assumes a gradual drawdown in U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Addressing a receptive audience at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, Bush said he would fight as long as necessary to defeat “the enemies of humanity.”
“We will never back down, never give in, and never accept anything less than complete victory.”
all photographs, Jim MacMillan, Phildelphia
Thanks to oofer for HuffPo link.
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Thank you for diary and excellent reporting once again! « RECOMMENDED »
U.S. decision for a pre-emptive war for regime change and possession of oil resources in Iraq. The forces of occupation by International Law are responsible for safety and security of Iraq’s 25 million citizens. Colin Powell’s only and last wise words: “When you invade a country, you own it”.
The irresponsible act of Congress to delegate its Powers of War to the executive leadership and Commander-In-Chief, has been followed by poverish planning of the aftermath of the invasion. The U.S. Armed Forces were not trained for a mission of providing peace and security. While celebrating VICTORY on Baghdad’s central square and the Photo-Op session to remove Saddam’s statue, the rest of the country used the vacuum of power to loot and sabotage Iraq’s future assets.
For all of the mistakes in decisions and judgments by the Bush neocon administration, it should be easy to IMPEACH Bush-Cheney before 2008, only if Congress will act and show its responsibility in name of We the People of America.
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The irresponsible act of Congress to delegate its Powers of War to the executive leadership and Commander-In-Chief, has been followed by poverish planning of the aftermath of the invasion.
Yes very true, and before they ceded power (Roberts called the Congress part of the Executive Branch at his swearing-in… maybe the last [accidental] truth we hear from him) they ceded the debate. There was no real debate in this nation as we went to war.
Biden in August of 2002 (reported in Harper’s) called war ”inevitable”. Last week Jane Harman called for Zarqawi to be found (Osama?… Osama?, al Zawahiri?) and called the taking of al Azzam “very big, important”.
Supporting Bush…
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~ Cross-posted from RubDMC’s diary ::
Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photo) Day 137 ~
“Baghdad – US-led forces have bombed eight bridges on the Euphrates River in western Iraq to stop insurgents using them, US military spokesperson Major General Rick Lynch said Thursday.”
Now we are blowing up bridges. For the first time I believe we have lost. For the first time as a military professional I think we have no way of winning this. We are willing to destroy the basic structures of the country to deny the enemy their use.
Army Times by Antonio Castaneda (AP)
HAQLANIYAH, Iraq Oct. 4 — The U.S. military launched a major offensive in a cluster of cities in the Euphrates River valley, an operation aimed at insurgents using the area as a safe haven in a region where 20 Marines were killed in August.
Air strikes by U.S. warplanes and dozens of helicopters set off explosions that lit the city skylines of Haqlaniyah, Parwana and Haditha before dawn. Bridges across the Euphrates River between Haqlanaiyah and Haditha were bombed to prevent insurgents from using them.
About 2,500 U.S. Marines, soldiers and sailors, and hundreds of Iraqi troops, took part in the operation, codenamed River Gate, the largest U.S. offensive in Anbar this year, the military said. More Iraqi soldiers appeared to be participating in the operation than any other offensive conducted in the region.
“The operation’s goal is to deny Al-Qaida in Iraq the ability to operate in the three Euphrates River valley cities and to free local citizens from the insurgents’ campaign of murder and intimidation of innocent women, children and men,” the U.S. military said in a statement.
It was the second U.S. offensive launched against al-Qaida in Iraq militants in the western Anbar region in the past four days.
Last Saturday, about 1,000 service members launched a separate U.S. offensive, Operation Iron Fist, farther to the west in the Euphrates River valley near the Syrian border in the village of Sadah and two nearby towns, Rumana and Karabila.
Is it still breaking news what is happening in Iraq – 33 minutes ago ::
Six Marines Killed in Iraq Bomb Attacks
An Iraqi woman grieves next to the body of her 6 year old daughter killed by a car bomb in Samarra, Iraq yesterday. Three other people from the same family were wounded in the explosion. AP Photo/Hameed RasheedThe U.S. rhetoric has been adjusted: we’re fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, just check all the reports, speeches, press releases and MSM journalism and TV coverage. Iraq transformed by Bush neocons into a hotbed of terrorists within 2½ years and growing.
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We’re bombing bridges. We are the occupying force.
We’re bombing bridges “to prevent the insurgents from using them”.
We’re bombing bridges “to free local citizens from the insurgents’ campaign…”
Once the bridges are gone, can you still “turn the corner”?
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Talibani a Kurd – he himself was occupied in London planning
a new venture: War on Iran!
Kurdistan anno 2005
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The troops are in a holding pattern.
The command structure is simply having them go through the motions of being the occupying force until the Administration decides on the right time to declare victory and either pull out or direct attention elsewhere.
ShrubCo is planning on simply declaring victory, walk away from Iraq saying that it is now an Iraqi problem.
In the mean time, this is like the German occupation of France in WWII. Slow attrition. Bunkered down in fortified positions…
I will eat my hat if there’s any major withdrawl of US troops from the MidEast before the end of the decade.
They haven’t constructed those 14 permanent bases in Iraq for nothing. Once the civil war is finally going full steam, that’s where most of our troops will be, bivouacked in these hardened bases. They’ll not be coming home.
They haven’t constructed those 14 permanent bases in Iraq for nothing. Once the civil war is finally going full steam, that’s where most of our troops will be, bivouacked in these hardened bases. They’ll not be coming home.
Precisely…
And there has been no scaling back on the biggest US Embassy on earth… either.
In March of 2004, right before at least 15 cities and towns rose up, and a couple days before Abu Ghraib broke, Jon Lee Anderson (New Yorker) said (on Charlie Rose) The Plan was for
-no reconstruction
-US forces bunkered at the bases
-paramilitaries to patrol the oil from extraction to off shoring at al Faw.
He did not specifically mention air patrol maintenance of the game preserve below, but that would be a given.
And a strange hyperactive investment rich international oasis called the Green Zone. Since this is all about money, certainly over red blood on both “sides”… how fitting.
The day the insurgents bring down an airliner instead of a chopper, well, there will be some stress.
I’ve been emphasizing a particular point of view for quite a while now, a perspective I think is vital if we are going to have first a true understanding of the forces at work that have created and are maintaining the Iraq debacle, and which will then allow us to take steps to begin reversing the damage caused by the reckless, insane and bloodthirsty neocon agenda.
The perspective is simple. The Bush regime’s agenda in Iraq is to perpetuate the conflict, not to establish either security, stability or, least of all, liberty and democratic equality for the Iraqi citizens themselves.
I recognize that there are many who are as yet unwiling to impugn motives this dark and diabolical to our leaders. The tendency in society is to generally respect authority and almost always we tend to reject the notion that’ one’s leaders could actually be willfully undermining the very goals they claim to have in order to further a more insidious agenda. (Imagine how difficult it has been for parents to finally acknowledge that what their child has been telling them about being molested by the parish priest is true. This what I’m talking about about how we are so reluctant to believe that those in authority we are conditioned to “trust” could violate that trust in such an overwhelmingly ugly and extreme way.)
“As rotten and maniacal as Cheney and Perle and Wolfowitz and Feith and all the others are, there are many who even so have a hard time believing these ideological lunatics could be rotten and diabolical enough to actually deliberately sacrifice the lives of our own US soldiers on the altar of their own ideological ambition; that they would willingly allow their force structure in Iraq to be unsuccessful in achieving “victory” over those fighting against them in order to widen and extend the scope of the war inorder to serve a bigger and longer term agenda.
I however, have no such illusions about the people running the Bush regime. I have no interest in according them the benefit of the doubt on their actions; I have no interest in chalking up the diaster they’ve created in Iraq to simple incompetence and ideological blindness. No these are factors, but I insist the catastrophe now evolving in Iraq is the result of deliberate and premeditated planning on their part. And I have no interest in according them this benefit of the doubt for another simple and obvious reason. There is no evidence on any level that they are trying to achieve the security and stability they claim is their goal. (I would challenge anyone to cite even one single major policy decision or strategic action in Iraq that supports the notion that the architects of this war are seeking stability.)
And, ultimately, if we don’t realize this and structure the public dialogue in a way that encompases this concept directly and openly, we wil not find even a reality-based starting point from which to begin formulating policy and strategies to dismantle the juggernaut of violence and deal effectively with the so-called threat of terrorism that purportedly threatens the world.
Agree… on all points.
I never ascribe to “stupid” what “malice” also works for…
Great line about “stupid” and “malice”. Sounds like something Mencken might have said.
for nothing.
And spent billions, for nothing.
And,
if Iraq goes civil war or just continues as is, the last place you want troops is hunkered down, supplied by airdrop, in hardened bunkers. Sitting ducks.
Not that this Administration won’t do it. However, it won’t change anything.
The troops have been abandoned.
The end of the decade is a long time from now, given how things are going. This is exactly the point in the Vietnam War where we launched “Vietnamization” in earnest and started backing for the door as quickly as we could get away with.
My prediction – We’ll see the first major troop withdrawl announcement (maybe 30-50%) announced in time to affect the 2006 election: The Republicans are facing disaster.
Any condiments you’d like me to get ready for your hat?
I’d like to think you are right, but sadly, even though the vietnam war was a disatser from the outset just like the Iraq mess is now, I believe the government wanted to “win” in Vietnam, (that is that they genuinely wanted to defeat the spread of communism as they saw it and to poke a stick into the eye of Mao.) But beyond those goals I don’t think either the Johnson or the Nixon regime’s had another agenda they were hiding.
With this crop of crazies running the White house and Pentagon and CIA, (and not the State Dept.), I think the true agenda being pursued has virtually nothigto do with security or stability in Iraq orof defeating “terrorism”. This is why I see the dynamics of how this is destined to play out as so very different from Vietnam.
I am hopeful I am wrong, and to that end I’ll think about your offer of condiments for the hat. I’ll eat it joyously if we withdraw from Iraq and the MidEast before the end of the decade.
It does allow them to continue looting of the American treasury.
Is that all?
Is that enough?
Stupidity disguised as evil, or evil disguised as stupidity.
Yes, but which?
If they can prolong chaos long enough they can destabilize and weaken the other governments in the region, thereby making them either more vulnerable to military takeover or making them more willing to cut deals for oil exclusivity as a means of avoiding the military takeover.
I’m sure that the leaders in every oil producing country recognize that in the not too distant future, as the oil supply declines, the likelihood that the US will attack them increases significantly.
As for what the US nuts want with control of the oil, it’s as much about depriving their economic competitors, (like China and the EU), of the oil as it is about using more of it here in the US.
To the plan A of “they will shower us with flowers.”
Won’t work any better, either.
But I think I understand your point.
Thanks for your reply.
Hell, you nail one foot to the ground and turning corners is about the only thing left you can still do. Too bad it’s just the same corner over and over and over again…
Thanks for your comments… 😉
Iron Fist, River Gate, Eternal Freedom all for Enduring War.
My own guess about the bridges is that we are (even more) utterly isolating the Sunni. We have nver hesitated to destroy infrastructure, people, light, water, power, freedom of movement, access to an ordinary life… the list is long.
We do not even get the oil out… think of it… from small acorns of instability (“destabilisation”), mighty chaos grows…
Fisk of the Independent has always maintained we gamed Iraq for Civil War… which will be a handy reason not to abandon Iraq. Stay the new course, as soon as they “manufacture consent” with the American people to forget the wretched history of several years.
And the Democrats last best idea is to run against Bush, in 2002 they were going to take down Bush “one at a time”. Wiser to watch him, he knows he does not have to run again. Day after day he makes this clear. And he holds power. LOL The Democrats decline to really look at him, really oppose him….
I see Bush as outcome… The nation would have to look very deep, far beyond ’06, ’08, ’10, ’12… to fix itself.
that they did this. This isn’t just attacking the insurgents. THEY ARE PARTITIONING THE COUNTRY. How are civilians supposed to move out of that region?
They’re setting up a Shi’a / Kurd confederacy, and have given up on the Sunnis.
So we’ll be “flagging” there as long as Bush is in office, that is clear.
There needs to be some other work than thanks for this, Marisacat, when the thing you show us is the opposite of what we want to see and want to be reality. But thanks will have to do.
Marisa..thank you for this, as hard as it is to read. Too bad were hearing more about Tom Cruise getting his wife pregnant than we are on whats really happening in Iraq. My heart hurts for those troops…and their loved ones, and for the Iraqi people.
This is important info you’re providing here and it’s much appreciated.
The blowing of the bridges is like the flawed maxim used during the Vietnam debacle; “..destroying the village in order to save it”.
I hope more and more people are realizing that the Bush regime never intended to win this war, that they never intended to actually establish stability and security in Iraq, (let alone a functioning Democracy or any sort of true liberty for the people). I hope more of us realize that success in Iraq for BushCo means further, fundamentally unending conflict and violence until the entire region is engulfed in war.
This is the sort of thing that gives credence to the theories many of us had from the beginning about this not being the sort of war that BushCo intended to “win”, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. Many of us believed, from the beginning, that precisely this kind of chaos was among the primary goals of the invasion.
I wonder if there will ever come a time when people will realize that we were right. Because friends, let me tell you, did you think they hated us when they thought we were wrong? Just wait until they realize we’ve been right all along — no matter which side of the political aisle they’re on, arrogant people who do poor analysis resent that way more.
You can make a list of every major decision Bushco and the Pentagon suits made, (failing to secure the ammo dumps in the aftermath of the invasion, thereby making untold quantities of weapons and explosives available to our “opposition”;, disbanding the Iraqi army and throwing 400,000 young Iraqi males into the unemployment category; de-Baathification, effectively removing all skilled professionals from critical infrastructure and governmental and medical and scholastic institutions at precisely the tie those institutions needed to be strongly rebuilt and revitalized; excluding local Iraqi businesses from directly competing for reconstruction contracts, etc), and the result is that nothing they’ve done has been supportive of their stated goals of liberation, security and stability in Iraq. None! All of these actions have contributed to inciting and intensifying the violence.
This is such a good write up. You hit so many things on the head here. But all they can say is we are winning….well bullshit to this. We have been loosing since day one. Why cuz we have been on the road of agression since that day. This whole war was based on lies of such magnitude that it is way beyond reality.
The real fact is that ppl are dying..both Americans, Iraqis and others. Ppl that needent die for anything other than old age. I find this simply unacceptable. This is one of my major rants on a daily basis…A war that is unnecessary and very letheal to the world. I really think we could have taken SH and his boys out in a different manner than this war. I simply cant understand why we did not do it the other way. It would have worked and did a much better impact on the world than this way.
I just hope that eveyone, no matter their politics, can see thru this facade. I simply do not respect the leadership of the military any more…I will henseforth and forever be very judgmental of them on anything they say or do from here on out. I for the life of me can not understand where these kind of ppl came from…It was not from the military I once knew. They take no pride in their leadership. They do not even have leadership, IMHO. They look to me like YES men and women. They are political, not military. This is not how it should be in my military…you see, one a leader becomes political, the equation changes..lives are lost, perception is changed and ideals are not rational and lost.
they are winning.
“They make level IV side armor, too, that we don’t have. Of all the guys that have been shot and killed here, all have been through the side of the armor where there’s no plate. That’s where the snipers are aiming for, and hitting. my two guys who got hit by a sniper … one went through the side (no plate) and he survived by the grace of god. The other moved at the last second and the bullet hit the plate right no its edge.”
That these kids turned butchers STILL do not have the equipment they need is a freaken outrage. Where the hell are all those billions of dollars going? (Halliburton…I know). AND why oh why is the reality of these stories not on the front page of every freaken newspaper. How do we get these stories to them? MAKE them report what is really going on there? WE MUST stop the madness. NOW!
To be honest, this emailer better watch his back. Leonard Clark was shut down for revealing less “operational details” than this.
It’s sad, it’s crazy, it’s a hell we’ve been led into. If someone told me tomorrow that George Bush was a secret Chinese agent sent to destroy the US from within I’d be half inclined to believe him.
George Bush secret Chinese agent…isn’t that the flipping truth. Somedays I just think…how can this be? How could this have possibly happened? It is total insanity. After what happened on the House floor yesterday they just have no end to the depths of the evil, power grabbing shit they will pull. WE must stop them but how?
and a terrorist. He lied to terrify us and must be held responsible for the deaths and suffering he has caused.
Beautiful work, Marisacat. Thank you.
story and respond. It helps to know so many pilots with so many years and who were in the Fallujah/Ramadi area when we first went in. That area to the Syrian border is about the size of Wyoming and with the assets we have on hand over there it is impossible to monitor that area in any constructive fashion. The Army Officer is a young officer so please don’t misunderstand the guys that I have talked to about all of this. They are on his side and not knocking him, it takes time and years in the game to know certain things. The huey in his area is most likely an upgraded huey with twin engines and the cobra over there is most likely a whiskey cobra and it is also upgraded with twin engines. Both aircraft are nothing to sneeze at and they are serious assets being twin engine…….one engine can get taken out with an RPG and often the pilot can still get the thing to the ground and a few people live if the rotor system or tail haven’t taken heavy damage. Also, the “insurgents” aren’t as afraid of the Apaches as they were at first, and with night vision capabilities and targets getting hit in the pitch black of night some of the Iraqi insurgents believed that the aircraft possessed magical powers and could even SMELL you and the pilots did nothing to discourage such stories either. People don’t stay stupid forever though and they are beginning to understand what the aircraft can and cannot do. Apache pilots here have had IED blow up right under them when they have been flanking troops on the ground. An IED can be set off remotely from someone hiding, generally somebody doesn’t detonate something without being able to observe it….we all want to know what we did don’t we? They do like to film such things though whenever able and the Apaches flying overhead make that impossible and to stay out in the open and detonate something means that they will radio in for you to be picked up and you visit a cell for awhile, maybe longer.
The answer to all of this that I was given was that we have older model airframes sitting over here in mothballs. Every old huey and old 58 sitting in storage needs to be sent to Iraq immediately, every pilot sitting on his arse needs to be in Iraq now, if aircraft aren’t being maintained or refueled then they need to be in the air surveilling, the routes that these soldiers run on the ground need to be surveilled constantly. We don’t have the assets needed to properly monitor the area and apparently we don’t care either. Everyday they load up and take off in the Humvee all they are doing is asking for someone to hit them! Everytime they take out someone who took a shot at them three more come across the Syrian border unknown and unnoticed by anybody. It is only an imaginary line in the sand that stretches for miles and miles and miles!
the lack of armor for the vehicles. It is the end all.
Nearly 3 years in.
But dont you remember that which rummy said about going to war with the army you have, not the one you wished you had!!!!!! This just makes me sicker than hell to think of even now, as I sit here and read. I really wished the choper he flies on would have one little bit of trouble that would make them land in no mans land just for once to see him squirm…..just to know he was scared to death like all the rest….I would give my eye teeth to have that happen just once…the old jerk that he is..and his smart mouth…I could just pour a gallon of soap in it and make him swallow every bit for the things he says.
I find it significant that the officer you contacted was referring to the huey and the cobra, “the” denoting “singular”. As you say, getting all the idle airframes deployed would certainly seem to be a good idea from a common sense perspective.
I’m not a military guy and have no contacts, but I am familiar with history to a certain extent. With this in mind I wonder; “Do we have artillery deployed in Iraq?” Wouldn’t it make sense that if we did have the intent of stopping infiltration of jihadi types along certain routes from Syria that we’d be able to set upartillery barrages to effectively prevent those routes from being used?
Pick your path to take, and then you have the herders who cross that border all the time and have done so for generations. Is it a herder crossing the border or someone coming to fight?
Yes! But wouldn’t any regular route need to be close to water, (like the Euprates river valley)?
Pure speculation but I’d be willing to bet that most of the cross border infiltration travels routes close to where the water is. Else many might die of thirst or be too noticeable in a vehicle on a road if they were travelling through the arid regions.
But I can ask.
sbj, it was oofer who had sent me the link to the Huff Po article.
oofer saw your query and sent this to me (he is not registered at BMT, he does post at Dkos under “oofer”) as answer. He served on the ground in Vietnam and in Afghanistan and is retired from the mil.
I think I have to agree with oofer, here. Good catch and consideration.
Marisacat,
Thank you and please thank “oofer” for his valuable and insightful commentary.
Certainly the pathological force of the neocons adherence to their own delusional ideology has guaranteed incompetent leadership and strategy coming out of the Pentagon and the White House. And even if we put aside the basic understanding that our motivation for invading Iraq doomed the whole exercise, the sheer incompetence of the leadership insures failure on the ground from a simply pragmatic perspective.
This is why I raised the question of artillery. even though I believe that whatever we do in Iraq will ultimately fail because our motives and ideology are not rooted in reality, we could at least have the correct armor and the “magnificent artillery” oofer referred to available to cut down on the needless deaths of our courageous soldiers the maniacs in the Bush regime are directly responsible for.
I fully oppose this terrible and senseless and catastrophic war, but I support the lives of our soldiers completely.