| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| Hard boyz may have fled Fallujah along 50-75% of the general population |
| 2004-11-10 |
| Although U.S. troops have punched into the center of the Iraqi city of Fallujah, they might later encounter many more insurgents who have escaped, perhaps to fight another day in another place. "I personally believe that some of the senior leaders probably have fled," said Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the multinational ground force commander in Iraq. Senior military leaders also said today that despite the fierce battles in the city, the fight will be over in a matter of days. "They [insurgents] seem to be fighting in very small groups, without much coherence to the defense after that initial attack we made," Metz said. According to Metz, Iraqi insurgents have suffered significant losses, greater than the U.S. military anticipated. He also said there have been very few civilian casualties. "We felt going in that at least half, if not 75 percent, of citizens had left Fallujah," Metz said. "We have seen very, very few civilians on the streets in Fallujah." Part of the reason the battle could end soon is that many of the insurgents may have left the city before it even began, including, said Metz, the men in charge. Commanders are also concerned about what one senior military officer described as the "Fallujah effect," with insurgents throughout the country launching attacks in support of those who remain in the city. In Ramadi, hundreds of armed militants flooded the streets, as U.S. helicopters kept watch over head. In Baquba, an Iraq police station was ambushed, killing one officer and wounding eight others. In Baghdad, car bombs hit an Iraqi police checkpoint at a hospital, as well as two churches. Further north in Kirkuk, another car bomb exploded, and two U.S. soldiers were killed in mortar attacks in Mosul. The continued violence means that even if the battle of Fallujah is successful, the problems will not be over. "We don't know how many people can go underground, simply go back into the population, or how many can escape what is a loose surrounding force around the city," said military analyst Tony Cordesman, an ABC News consultant. "We have to understand this is a battle. It is not a war." There are still concerns that the insurgents are regrouping inside Fallujah for a final assault. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #8 Anonymoose, when you're doing a lot of your killing with 500 lb bombs, 155mm howitzer shells, and 120mm tank main battery rounds, a lot of the bad guys get vaporized, buried alive, or at a minimum have their various body parts subdivided and scattered across a wide area. It all adds up to making it very difficult to do a body count. Besides, the services got such a bad taste from the Vietnam era body counts that they just don't do that sort of thing any more. It's more important to kill all we find than to find all we kill. |
| Posted by: RWV 2004-11-10 3:04:59 PM |
| #7 Are you suggesting that the military is disappearing bodies in an effort to support deliberate misleading statements that minimize the number of enemy KIA? Sounded more like a combination of low-balling body-counts, and removing bodies quickly so the media can't use them as grist? In all honesty don't see where they have time for the latter. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2004-11-10 11:55:11 AM |
| #6 127 Jihadis captured in Fallujah hospital according to latest reports, so not all of them have fled. |
| Posted by: Lux 2004-11-10 11:08:00 AM |
| #5 My take is that during Vietnam the body counts were inflated when we saw a trace of blood but couldn't find the body. In Iraq we are probably insisting on finding the whole thing and I'll be damned if I'm digging through the rubble to figure out if there was 2 or 20 bastards in that mini-fortress. |
| Posted by: RJ Schwarz 2004-11-10 10:23:00 AM |
| #4 Actually, I think it's likely the initial reports are low-balled just because it's a natural correction to the tendency to exaggerate. Plus it denies our most dangerous enemy -- the press -- some of its ammunition. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-11-10 10:14:24 AM |
| #3 Amoose, I am confused. Are you suggesting that the military is disappearing bodies in an effort to support deliberate misleading statements that minimize the number of enemy KIA? |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-11-10 10:09:16 AM |
| #2 I suggest that the military has "an embarrassment of riches", insofar as enemy killed. They have proven themselves terribly adept at "disappearing" enemy dead before they can be photographed or otherwise turned into propaganda. Case in point: watching on a day-to-day basis, who would suspect that the US has already killed between 15-20,000 enemy in the Sunni Triangle? And yet, Gen. Sanchez testified to that number. I hardly believe that these numbers were inflated. But listening to news reports, the high end of an estimate for this time frame would be less than a thousand. Bottom line, the "Battle of Fallujah" will be described a failure because "only 200-300 enemy were killed", when in truth it is ten times that number. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-11-10 10:02:06 AM |
| #1 The fall of Falluja is not an end all to Iraq's problems, but it's a damned good start! Keep the pressure on! |
| Posted by: RJB in JC MO 2004-11-10 9:58:23 AM |