FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - Gunmen battered American supply lines Monday, torching armored vehicles and looting a supply truck on its way from the Baghdad airport. The military said about 70 Americans and 700 insurgents had been killed this month, the bloodiest since the fall of Baghdad a year ago. Two U.S. troops and seven employees of American contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root were missing, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said Monday.
More U.S. forces maneuvered into place around Fallujah, and the military has warned it will launch an all-out assault on the besieged city if talks there between pro-U.S. Iraqi politicians and city officials fall through.
The military has been trying to regain control of supply routes after several convoys were ambushed at least 10 truck drivers kidnapped. Nine were released, but an American - Thomas Hamill of Macon, Miss. - remained a captive. On Monday, a convoy of flatbed trucks carrying M113 armored personnel carriers was attacked and burned on a road in Latifiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad. Witnesses said three people were killed.
| What the hell? Where's the force protection? |
A supply truck was also ambushed and set ablaze Monday on the road from Baghdad's airport. Looters moved in to carry away goods from the truck as Iraqi police looked on without intervening. Securing roads has now become a top priority for the military, U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Monday. "Over the past 24 hours we have put significant amount of combat power on both areas of operation to open up those lines of communication so we can not only resupply our forces in Fallujah, Ramadi and our forces down south, but also make those roads safe for travel," Kimmit said.
| So what happened to the M113's? |
Three U.S. Marines were killed Sunday in Anbar province, the area that includes Fallujah, the military said Monday without giving further details. An attack on an Army patrol in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, killed a soldier from the 1st Armored Division and injured four others on Sunday.
Kimmitt on Monday released the first full casualty statistics since widespread fighting erupted on April 4. "The coalition casualties since April 1 run about 70 personnel. ... The casualty figures we have received from the enemy are somewhere about 10 times that amount, what we've inflicted on the enemy," he told a Baghdad press conference.
Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, acknowledged that a battalion of the Iraqi army refused to fight in Fallujah - a sign of Iraqi discontent with the siege. Asked about the battalion's refusal on NBC's "Meet The Press," Sanchez said, "This one specific instance did in fact uncover some significant challenges in some of the Iraqi security force structures ... We know that it's going to take us a while to stand up reliable forces that can accept responsibility." Some 900 members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps are with three battalions of Marines.
The goal of the separate talks in Fallujah and the south - all conducted by Iraqis, with no Americans participating - was unclear. U.S. commanders demand that control of Iraqi police and U.S.-led coalition forces in the cities be restored and that insurgents in Fallujah lay down their arms and hand over Iraqis who killed and mutilated four American civilians on March 31. Iraqi Governing Council members, who have harshly criticized the U.S. offensive, are seeking a way to extend the truce and resolve the violence.
In Fallujah, hardly a shot was heard Monday morning, more than 36 hours after insurgents in the city said they were calling a cease-fire. The Marines have halted offensive operations since Friday. Despite the truce, guerrillas overnight made sporadic attacks, said Byrne. Marines killed two insurgents setting up a machine gun near a patrol and others were fired on by gunmen hiding in a school, he said.
Byrne said U.S. Marines would not withdraw from their positions in Fallujah. "Diplomacy is just talk unless you have a credible force to back it up," he said. "People will bend to our will if they are afraid of us."
| That sounds like a Marine talking. |
Most of the Iraqis killed in Fallujah in fighting that started last Monday were women, children and elderly, said al-Issawi, the Fallujah hospital director. Byrne cast doubt on the numbers and said he was confident troops in his 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment had not killed any civilians. "Just because (the Iraqis) say it's so, doesn't meant it's so," he said.
| Think the press can remember that? |
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