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IRAQ: U.S. Begins Bid to Crush Iraq Insurgents
And now for something completely different:
CAMP BOOM, Iraq - U.S. forces launched a massive operation early Sunday to crush insurgents and capture senior figures from the ousted regime in a show of force designed to stem a wave of deadly attacks on U.S. troops.
Finally
The operation, dubbed "Desert Sidewinder," was taking place in a huge swath of central Iraq stretching from the Iranian border to the areas north of Baghdad, and was expected to last several days. In Dojima, an upscale town where Sunni Muslim residents recently cleaned the still-standing portrait of Saddam, police raided homes of alleged Saddam loyalists they suspected of hiding caches of arms, including rocket-propelled grenades — the weapon of choice in many recent ambushes.
Usually freshly cleaned portraits of Saddam are a good sign that something might be afoot.
The operation, named after a rattlesnake, kicked off at about 2 a.m. Sunday, with officers simultaneously raiding as many sites as possible.
Officers only? I guess the enlisted got the day off.
It's AP — "soldiers, coppers, same idea"...
"We go in with such overwhelming combat power that they won't even think about shooting us," Lt. Col. Mark Young said earlier.
Overwhelming firepower is great when fighting enemy main force units. Sometimes not such a good idea when chasing guerillas.
U.S. officials in Washington have said repeatedly that no centralized Iraqi resistance to American rule remains. But on the ground, U.S. military personnel face "an organized effort," Young said.
I think that when Washington says "centralized resistance" they mean that the Iraqi army no longer exists as a force to be contended with. Insugency is decentralized by its very nature.
"Somewhere in Diala province, something happens every night," said Capt. John Wrann, referring to the province northeast of Baghdad where much of the operation was taking place. "It's got to be a coordinated thing." In a BBC interview, Paul Bremer said progress was being made in restoring basic services to the country and health care, water and power supplies were improving. He said 240 hospitals across the country and 95 percent of health clinics were now operating and Baghdad now had 18 to 20 hours of electricity a day.
Funny how you never see these sorts of stats in the NYT or Al Guardian. If Liberalhawk didn't publish them here regularly, I'd have no idea. BTW, when the NYT reports that the Iraqi people are complaining about no A/C, you know that they are only talking to ex-Baath party members. The regular Joes never had no freaking air conditioning.
Posted by: 11A5S 2003-06-29
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=15945