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| Iraq |
| A Cheery News Bit (AIF Mortar Team To Be Courtroom Film Stars) |
| 2006-09-14 |
| KHAN BANI SA’AD, Iraq – Two men were detained and a small cache discovered after Coalition Forces observed, with an unmanned aerial vehicle, six men fleeing the origin of an indirect fire attack on the civilians of Khan Bani Sa’ad, south of Baqubah Tuesday. After two mortar rounds impacted near the village, the nearby UAV observed the men fleeing the suspected origin of the attack in a gray sedan at a high rate of speed. With the help of the UAV, Soldiers from the 1-68 Combined Arms Battalion pursued the suspected mortar team. The suspected Anti-Iraqi Forces attempted to hide the car in a palm grove then fled on foot in opposite directions. Upon arrival at the scene, 1-68 CAB detained two of the men who had jumped into a nearby irrigation canal. The unit found the sedan along with one 120mm mortar system and six AK-47 magazines. The detainees, the vehicle, and the cache were transported to Forward Operating Base Warhorse where the detainees are being held for questioning. |
| Posted by:Glenmore |
| #9 Good post, flyover. [golf clap] |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-09-14 15:58 |
| #8 Verlaine in Iraq Yet another example of why it's a shame we decided to win this one the hard, slow way, with gigantic leverage and little actual war-fighting. I'm all for Iraqis winning this war - but we should have left them a much, much smaller/easier/shorter war to win. Along those lines..from an infantry team leader and noncommissioned officer on active duty in the United States Army. 'BUCK SARGENT' Win Lose or Draw Down ~~~ The situation in Baghdad is bleak not because of a hopeless military solution, but due to a feckless political one. Prime Minister al-Maliki has truly found himself caught between Iraq and a hard place. He needs the support of the Shiite coalitions to which he belongs, yet is being made irrelevant by their encroachment on his governmentÂ’s rightful monopoly on force. The Mahdi Army is literally just that: an army all its own. Much like the IRA, they have a political as well as a militant wing, and they wield both to considerable effect. If Maliki desires to become a true statesman, heÂ’s going to have to pay the cost to be the boss. Unfortunately, it smells to these nostrils like the fix is already in. If you get me elected, youÂ’ll be protected. The only thing that can pull the city back from the brink is to allow us to do the job we were purportedly sent here to do. That means open season on the Shiite militias, which RBurgers have been praying for.. since forever.. whether itÂ’s popular for al-Maliki with his political base or not. Anything less is a waste of everyoneÂ’s time: his, theirs, and especially ours. In the very first week of ground operations our company alone uncovered enormous caches of offensive weaponry stashed or buried on the grounds of the mosques we searched in the presence of local Iraqi forces. We also randomly searched the headquarters of one of the Islamic political parties and uncovered enough of an arsenal to outfit a small army. Since then, weÂ’ve done little else but "clearing ops" which amount to us cordoning off entire neighborhoods and searching every single residence, talking with the people who live there, and collecting census data. This face to face communication and rapport building is indeed important, and was at the heart of our previous success in Mosul, but is only half the solution for a fractured area like Baghdad. There are several rogue militia groups operating with near impunity, responsible for much of the "sectarian strife" that produces not only hundreds of corpses weekly, but dozens of proclamations of "impending civil war" by nearly every news agency on the planet. Why every mosque in the Baghdad area was not simultaneously raided on a brigade-level scale within days of uncovering insurgent mother lodes right off the bat, I cannot tell you. What I can tell you is that we were purportedly sent down here to "get tough on terrorism" in the city, yet so far we have yet to be let off the leash. WeÂ’ve cleared entire neighborhoods house by house and block by block, performing census work far more often than targeted raids. Call me crazy, but I figure that when houses of worship are being exploited to house weapons of war, that is when Muslim sensitivities need to take a back seat to modern realities. Losing Their Religion I believe the Iraqis themselves must be made to bear the lionÂ’s share of the blame for allowing their country to remain so fractured over three years after the fall of the House of Saddam. Only Iraqis can fix what Iraqis have broken. The U.S. military can no more help them settle their differences than they could help us restructure Social Security. We can help them carry the nails, but they have to be the ones to hammer them in. |
| Posted by: RD 2006-09-14 14:12 |
| #7 Verlaine - I presume, correct me if I'm wrong, that you include the coalition failure to put much more effort into stopping the Iranian's efforts to subvert the entire process - which includes their proxies in Syria. This is reason #1 I believe the current situation is so far from a solid success. Reason #2... I am not a basher regards the "failure to win the peace" since plans don't survive first contact and, well, they're fucking Arabs, so no thanks or appreciation for the opportunity dropped in their laps were ever forthcoming. They were always going to bitch and moan and blame us. Reason #3... Turkey played a large part in the survival of the Ba'athists and the homegrown Sunni"insurgency". Back to #1... What I am extremely pissed off about is that the coalition never thumped the Iranians or Syrians even when they were caught red-handed, such as arms, jihadis, agents, tanker trucks full of phoney ballots, directly supporting militias, etc. The current Shia parties leading the government, DAWA and SCIRI, seem to be little more than Iranian puppets. To give the Iraqis the chance to join the 21st century was laudable. To waste the treasure expended in that effort by allowing the whole thing to be stolen by Iran, for a mere trifle of $70M per month, is a travesty - to the Iraqis and to our own people. For this failure to safeguard, at least in some useful degree during the first three years, meting out an appropriate ass-kicking to the Mullahs and Pencilneck, I blame Bush. #1 is on his plate, IMHO, and has done the most damage to the long-term potential in Iraq. Of course, toppling the Mad Mullahs will go a loooong way toward correcting this mistake. For #2 and #3, well, look at the assholes we were dealing with. Thank you for your posts - they're always from a different POV and based upon facts, not far-away fancy. |
| Posted by: flyover 2006-09-14 14:05 |
| #6 I recall one of the better bomb-strike videos a while back - from the same area up north - was of another mortar team, which had launched its atttack from a plam grove. The outcome seemed to preclude any worries about detaining them or their treatment in detention .... Yet another example of why it's a shame we decided to win this one the hard, slow way, with gigantic leverage and little actual war-fighting. I'm all for Iraqis winning this war - but we should have left them a much, much smaller/easier/shorter war to win. |
| Posted by: Verlaine in Iraq 2006-09-14 13:42 |
| #5 Were they Mirandized? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-09-14 13:11 |
| #4 Let's prove for once and for all that torture works. Tie them to a tree in the town and let the town's folks take out their frustrations on them, and I'll bet the farm that will put an end to mortar fire on that town. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2006-09-14 12:27 |
| #3 Let the villagers "question" them. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2006-09-14 10:30 |
| #2 Why didn't the UAV fire? |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2006-09-14 09:29 |
| #1 PC correct Bull%&*t. Firing mortars into civ targets and they call them suspects. This is a war zone not Kansas. Terrorists, insurgents, etc... but not suspects. Now the FBI will want to interview and give them legal aid. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2006-09-14 08:38 |