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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
 Sun Apr 06, 2003 2:15 am
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You know what PV...you are right...there is a "propaganda war" being played on America.
You can thank the CIA, the elitist bankers and globalists who control most of our mainstream media for that.
I guess so-called "Patriots" NEVER QUESTION what they see or hear...right PV?
All the COINTELPRO style propaganda in the world won't change my mind that this administration is 100% CORRUPT..through and through.
If you don't understand what COINTELPRO is...I suggest you type it into a search engine.
While you are at it...I suggest typing in NORTHWOODS DOCUMENT and OPERATION PAPERCLIP.
Maybe then you will realize that these people are NOT our friends...they work for the globalists.
Whatever our brothers and sisters are going through in Iraq...It's only to enrich the lives of a chosen few. The Iraqis "Liberation" will be short lived. They will replace one tyranny with another.
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David
Joined: 20 Oct 2000
Posts: 1381
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Sun Apr 06, 2003 2:30 am
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Why all the 'cut and paste' hate. If a person wants to share information with the board what is wrong with cut and past as long as it has not been altered by the person posting?? Posting links is nice but not all people want to use the links to other sites.
Soooo....What would you that have C&P objections suggest doing?
Your turn. |
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Sun Apr 06, 2003 2:42 am
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It is not about Saddam anymore
April 05, 2003
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/apr/05guest.htm
This war is about liberation of the Iraqi people. This war is about introducing democracy not only in Iraq but also in the entire Arab world. This war is about getting rid of Weapons of Mass Destruction. That is what we were told.
Till day 16 of the war, what we have seen is that in order to destroy Weapons of Mass Destruction (which Iraq may or may not have) the US and UK forces are carrying out mass destruction of Iraq by using 'smart' bombs, cluster bombs, B52s etc etc. In his report from Iraq on dropping of cluster bombs by the Americans, Robert Fisk [The Independent, UK, April 3] writes: 'The wards of the Hillah teaching hospital are proof that something illegal -- something quite outside the Geneva Convention -- occurred in the villages around the city once known as Babylon.' Then he concludes the report with: 'One hesitates, as I say, to talk of human rights in this land of torture but if the Americans and British don't watch out, they are likely to find themselves condemned for what they have always -- and rightly -- accused Iraq of: war crimes.'
On liberation and democracy the line propagated by the US and UK is simple. Once Saddam's 'evil' regime is dislodged, the US and UK will put Iraq on a democratic path. Then the shining democracy in Iraq would be an example in the entire Arab world and help to create democracy in neighboring countries.
That sounds good. But there are two points which needs to be addressed. 1. Liberation by occupation -- which is what the US and UK are planning to do though they will say otherwise -- does not sound logical. You can't liberate people by occupying their country. In fact an occupation will give rise to a movement for liberation. 2. Is the leadership of the US and UK really serious about democratization of Iraq? Do they have necessary will to walk the talk?
Let us revive our memories. Not so long ago, in order to 'liberate' Afghanistan from the 'evil' Soviet empire, the Western world, led by America (who else?), fought a different kind of war. America, with the help of an Islamic fundamentalist dictator (please note, dictator -- not democratically elected leader) of Pakistan, promoted Islamic fundamentalist resistance against the 'evil' Soviet empire.
In the words of Eqbal Ahmad, the late Pakistani intellectual, 'American operatives went about the Muslim world recruiting for jihad in Afghanistan, because the US saw it as an opportunity to mobilize the Muslim world to liberate Afghanistan from the 'evil' Soviet empire.'
Mr Ahmad adds further: 'The notion of jihad as a "just struggle" had not existed in the Muslim world since the tenth century until the United States revived it during its jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.'
The jihadis with ample aid from CIA did manage to 'liberate' Afghanistan from the 'evil' Soviet empire; however instead of democracy what Afghanistan got was the most retrograde regime in the world. The success of the CIA-sponsored jihad also made Osama bin Laden free to try a similar jihad against what he saw as another 'evil' empire: The United States.
When the chickens came home to roost on September 11, 2001, America had to fight another war, once again to 'liberate' the Afghan people from the 'evil' regime headed by the people once described by Ronald Reagan, the then president of the United States of America, as 'the moral equivalent of America's founding fathers.'
Did the second war for 'liberation' of the Afghan people result in a democratic government in Afghanistan? Well one may argue that it is too early to ask that question. Fine, let me ask another one. Is 'liberated' Afghanistan on her way to democracy? The only thing we know about what is happening in Afghanistan is that Hamid Karzai, the 'leader' of Afghanistan needs to be protected, literally, by the Americans.
Coming back to Iraq, all the assumptions of the US and the armchair Iraqi 'Opposition leaders' sitting in air-conditioned cabins in the US have been proved wrong. There is no uprising in Iraq. The Iraqis are not welcoming the US and UK forces. There are no photo-ops of 'V for victory' signs by 'liberated' Iraqis anywhere even after 'remarkable' progress by the Allied forces deep inside Iraq. The Iraqis are not fleeing, in fact thousands of Iraqis have returned home from neighboring countries since the war started.
The majority of Iraqis may not like Saddam Hussein. But are they ready to accept occupation of their country by outsiders? Are the Iraqis telling America something, which it needs to be told: that Iraq is for Iraqis what America is to Americans? Is it nationalism, which is playing its just part in the hearts and minds of Iraqis?
Even though Tony Blair has said eventually it will be the Iraqis, which will rule Iraq, it is certain there would be a considerable 'interim period' during which the US will occupy Iraq. In that interim period, could America afford to promote democracy in Iraq? What if the emerging democratic setup is unwilling to be America's poodle? Would America still promote democracy or will it prop up a dictator?
Think about democracies in the world. How many democracies have been propped up by American power? Now count the dictators propped up by America. It is clear that because the dictators -- who have the least respect for the wishes of their people -- are easy to get on its side, the most famous democracy in the world finds it comfortable to deal with dictators more than democratic leaders. How many people would then bet on America actually promoting democracy in Iraq?
If the interim period is long (as it seems it will be), what if the Iraqis see that as an occupation of their country? How would Iraqis respond to the occupation? They certainly can't be faulted if they don't like being ruled by foreign forces; after all, it is their country. What if the Iraqis start fighting the American forces? Would they be termed as terrorists? Will we see the vicious circle of: 'Stop terrorism first and then we will give you self rule,' like what we are seeing in Palestine?
With the UN proving to be ineffective, its credibility damaged perhaps beyond repair, whom would the Iraqis -- wanting to get rid of America's occupation -- turn to? What if the jihadi forces offer their services to help Iraqis get rid of the Americans (well, they have already started to do so and cornered Saddam's regime has given a warm welcome to them)? After all, jihad as an instrument for fighting foreign forces was used by the US in Afghanistan in a successful manner. The only people who must be delighted with this war must be the jihadis. They must be thanking Bush for opening a new job market for them.
That is not the only worrying factor. If one needs a proof of America's sheer lack of understanding of the consequences of this war, then it came from Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, last week. In a televised comment he provoked the Shias of Iraq to rise (against the Sunni rule of Saddam Hussein). It is not only distasteful but sickening that a senior American leader is engaging in a blatant and open provocation for one community to rise against another.
What are the consequences of such provocation? Will not it result in civil disturbances not only in Iraq but also all over the Muslim world? How is this going to help the democratization of Iraq in particular and the Arab/Muslim world in general? How is it going to help restore order in Iraq and the Muslim world?
The only benefit of such blatant provocation is that it will help the US-led forces to dislodge Saddam Hussein faster. But the consequences of such provocation are far more dangerous. So could we conclude that the Americans are only interested in quicker military victory irrespective of how it comes and what the consequences are?
This war has now taken an unexpected turn -- thanks to the Iraqi people's reluctance to accept the Americans at their face value. Where Saddam Hussein is not an issue, George Bush is.
Now it is Bush who needs to prove that he is not just a 'trigger-loving cowboy having a jolly good time' with Saddam Hussein's depleted army, but a capable leader of the only superpower in the world. For Bush, proving that could be hard work. |
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Sun Apr 06, 2003 4:16 am
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Horrific wounds among U.S. soldiers, says medic
06.04.2003 01:00 UTC
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1429_W_826056,00.html
A Colorado newspaper has quoted a neurosurgeon treating wounded U.S. soldiers from Iraq at a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, as saying that TV reports were sanitising the war. Dr Gene Bolles said wounded being flown to Landstuhl were young men, aged 18, 19, and 20, with "horrific injuries", including lost arms, legs and hands, and significant brain injuries. The newspaper, Colorado's "Boulder Daily Camera", said Dr. Bolles is a 66-year civilian medic and a former Vietnam War surgeon. Up until Friday, the hospital at Landstuhl had received 281 wounded from the war. Plane-loads were arriving regularly. Officially, the USA lists 75 dead; Britain, 27 killed. Iraq has not stated its military losses, but puts civilian casualties at 1,252 killed and 5,103 injured. |
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rainheart
Joined: 03 Oct 2001
Posts: 175
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Sun Apr 06, 2003 5:31 am
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http://www1.iraqwar.ru
Russian military intel update: War in Iraq, April 5
05.04.2003 [22:07]
The situation on the US-Iraqi front is characterized by gradual reduction of American offensive activity. After the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division tank forces had marched towards Baghdad and its vanguards reached the city from south and south-west, engineering fortification of their positions began, which indicates the end of the current stage of the campaign as well as the loss of offensive potential of American forces and necessity to rest and regroup. It is supposed that during the next two days the American command will attempt local strikes in order to improve and extend their positions on the south and, especially, south-west approaches to Baghdad (crossing the Baghdad – Samarra roadway) and begin bringing fresh forces from Kuwait.
As we supposed, during the last night Americans were moving 101st Airborne Division troops to help the 1st Mechanized Division that captured the airport of Baghdad yesterday morning. About 80 strike and transport helicopters and 500 marines were deployed there.
But all the efforts to reinforce the brigade with heavy armor failed as Iraqi started powerful artillery strikes at the transport routes and organized mobile firing groups on the roads. After reports about losing 3 tanks and 5 APCs on the route the American command had to pause the movement of the reinforcements by land.
Yesterday’s estimates of the forces concentrated here were overstated. After analysis of intercepted radio communications and reports of American commanders it was specified that at the airport there were only parts of the 1st brigade troops, up to 2 enforced battalions with the help of a self-propelled artillery division 3 thousand soldiers and officers strong, 60 tanks and about 20 guns.
Another battalion enforced with artillery crossed the Baghdad-Amman roadway and came into position at the crossroads to the south of the airport, near Abu-Harraib.
Soldiers of the 1st Mechanized Brigade spent almost all the last night in chemical protection suits, waiting for Iraqi to use their “untraditional weapons”. Apart from that, their positions were constantly shot with artillery and machine gun fire. The brigade commanders report that the soldiers are ultimately dead-beat, and are constantly requesting reinforcements.
About 10 armored units including 4 tanks were lost in this area yesterday. Up to 9 men were killed, about 20 wounded, at least 25 reported missing. Moreover, the status of a patrol group that didn’t arrive at the airport remains unclear. It is supposed that it either moved away towards Khan-Azad and took defense there or got under an ambush and was eliminated. It is now being searched for.
The losses of Iraqi were up to 40 men killed, about 200 captured (including the airport technical personnel), 4 guns and 3 tanks.
Currently American reconnaissance squadrons are trying to dissect the suburban defenses with local sallies.
At the same time, marine troops are approaching the south-east borders of Baghdad. Their vanguard units reached the outskirts of Al-Jessir and immediately tried to capture the bridge over a feeder of the Tigris, the Divala river, but were met with fire and stopped.
Commander of the 1st Expeditionary Marine Squadron colonel Joe Dowdy was deposed yesterday morning. As was revealed, the colonel was deposed “…for utmost hesitation and loss of the initiative during the storm of An-Nasiriya…”. This way the coalition command in Qatar found an excuse for their military faults by that town. The “guilt” of the colonel was in his refusing to enter the town for almost 3 days and trying to suppress Iraqi resistance with artillery and aviation, trying to avoid losses. As a result, the command additionally had to move the 15th squadron of colonel Tomas Worldhouser there, who had to storm the ferriages for almost 6 days, with about 20 of his soldiers killed, 130 wounded and 4 missing. The 1st Expeditionary Squadron lost no men at An-Nasiriya, but 3 marines died, as were reported, “by inadvertency” and about 20 soldiers got wounded.
Despite the fact that marines were able to capture one of the bridges at the south outskirt of An-Nasiriya, the ferriage across the Euphrates is still risky. Fights in the city are going on. The American command has to cover the ferriage with a company of marines enforced with tanks and artillery, up to 400 soldiers and officers strong. Every column passing across the bridge gets shot by Iraqis from the left bank and the marines have to cover it by setting smoke screens and delivering constant fire. A brigade group of the 101st Airborne Division is engaged in the combat but is unable to break the Iraqi resistance. Throughout the day 3 men were wounded, 1 soldier reported missing.
In An-Najaf, after 3 days of gunning and bombardment the 101st Airborne Division marines were able to advance towards the center of the town and are now fighting in the market region.
It is reported that 2 marines were killed and 4 wounded. 1 APC was destroyed with a RPG. At the same time there arrived information that during the last night most of the garrison (up to 3 thousand Republican Guardians of the “Medina” Division) left the town on cars for Karbala. Only militia remained in the town, covering the withdrawing main forces and continuing to resist.
All the attempts of American marines to advance into Al-Khindiya failed. After 1 APC from the vanguard was knocked out and more than 20 RPG shots at the column, the marines withdrew at their original positions. 2 soldiers were wounded and evacuated rearwards. American intelligence believes that no more than a battalion of Iraqis are defending the town. Their resistance remains, despite that the town has already been under siege for 8 days.
Americans were unable to capture the left-bank part of Al-Hillah. The 82nd Airborne Division troops are only capable of keeping a narrow “corridor” – across the outskirt of Al-Hillah with the bridge over the Euphrates. There is constant shooting in the town. Throughout the day in this region the coalition lost 1 men killed and 4 wounded.
A similar “corridor” is kept by marines in the Al-Kut town. But there is information that allows us to suppose that Americans were pushed away from the town last night. Continuous requests of artillery and aviation support and coordinates transmitted to the artillery HQ indicate that the combat occurred in immediate proximity to the American positions. 4 times ambulance helicopters flew into this region, and there hasn’t still been a report from the commander of the marine group that defends this area, which may indicate that he hasn’t yet have full information about his units.
The situation at Al-Diwaniyah, where a heavy combat has been going on for 3 days, has become a little clearer. Currently all American forces have been pushed away from the town. Early morning an American helicopter was attacked. Its crew died. Another helicopter was shot down and had to land to the east from Karbala. Information about its crew is being obtained.
The overall situation in the central region of Iraq is characterized by gradual reduction of the coalition activity and change to active defense. But extraordinary dispersion of the ground forces, their fragmentation (the biggest group now contains up to 12 thousand troops) create advantageous preconditions for Iraqi counter-attacks, but the air superiority of the coalition severely complicate such projects. If, due to weather conditions, the coalition forces lose their air support, it may have very dramatic consequences.
At the south of Iraq the British advance on Basra is losing its strength as well and may already stop during the next two days. Currently the British have been unable to achieve any serious success on this direction, and fights are only occur at the outskirts of the city.
The British command had to admit that it had underestimated the strength of Iraqi resistance and was unable to reveal the structure and number of Basra defenders fully and operatively. Currently in the city and the Fao peninsula, according to the British data, about 5 thousand of regular Iraqi military forces are defending (parts of 51st Mechanized Division of general Khaled Khatim Saleh al-Hashimi) and up to 5-7 thousand volunteers and militiamen. At the same time, British hopes for an armed Shia revolt have been ruined. The Shia leaders in Iran called their Iraqi coreligionists to fight against English and American “satanists” and “Zionists”, leaving British without their “best card” in the plan of capturing Basra. 3 men were killed and 8 wounded yesterday.
At the North of Iraq desultory fightings between Kurdish troops “peshmerga” and Iraqi forces are going on. The morning messages about the town Kalak captured have not been confirmed yet, and according to the radio surveillance data the actions only take place at the approaches of the town. For now, Kurds are mainly busy robbing neighboring villages and transporting the stolen goods into their basic regions. According to American special forces which have recently been replaced here, sometimes after capturing a village up to half of the Kurdish squadron abandon their positions. They load stolen property into captured cars and leave for their homes to be back next morning for new salvage.
But apart from clear marauding of “peshmerga”, the coalition command has more and more problems with keeping the decent moral level of their fighting soldiers. Spite and irritability are growing even in British troops, which were always “correct enough” towards the civilians on the occupied territories. In increasing frequency British soldiers show violence and rudeness towards civilians. At a recent consultation at the British HQ, a representative of the military police command pointed at the fact that even actions of arresting people suspected in underground activities occur with unnecessary violence and publicity, and resemble rather intimidation than special police operations. The command issued a special order regarding the required behavior in the occupied regions, but even after it had been published a few analogous incidents were registered.
An event that had happened 5 days before also received publicity at the coalition HQ. During a night “cleanup” in one of suburban houses near An-Nasiriya three marines shot a man and afterwards raped and shot his wife. The command got information about this accident from one of its informers. After interrogation the marines were sent to Qatar for additional investigations.
In increasing frequency commanders find things belonging to Iraqis in their soldiers’ rucksacks. The soldiers are discontent of their commanders attempting to cease this practice, and call those items “war salvage”. Currently the command is preparing a special order regarding this issue.
[translated by Necroman]
http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_article.php?articleId=1881&lang=en |
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David
Joined: 20 Oct 2000
Posts: 1381
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Sun Apr 06, 2003 7:01 am
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THE SADDEST STORY OF ALL
Apr 5 2003
From Anton Antonowicz in Baghdad. Pictures by Mike Moore
AN old man cries over the coffin of his daughter. His wife and younger daughter sit in the dirt outside the mortuary in shock and abject sadness.It is only an hour and 20 minutes since Nadia Khalaf died, too early for total grief to set in. But time enough to know their lives have been shattered forever.We discovered them during a random visit to Al Kindhi Hospital in North East Baghdad at 1pm. The doctors did not know we were coming - we had an official guide and we were free to choose which hospital.
Nadia was lying on a stretcher beside the stone mortuary slab. Her heart lay on her chest, ripped from her body by a missile which smashed through the bedroom window of the family's flat nearby in Palestine Street. SLAUGHTERED: Najem Khalaf weeps at the sight of his dead daughter Nadia, killed by a missile Her father Najem Khalaf stood beside her corpse. And I shall try to write what he and his family said in exactly the order they said it. I shall try because I hope it will better convey the bewilderment and horror that broke on one Iraqi household yesterday."A shell came down into the room as she was standing by the dressing-table," Najem says. "My daughter had just completed her PhD in Psychology and was waiting for her first job. She was born in 1970. She was 33. She was very clever."Everyone said I have a fabulous daughter. She spent all her time studying. Her head buried in books. She didn't have a care about going out enjoying herself. My other daughter is the same. She has a Master's degree in English and teaches at the university. Me? I'm just a lorry driver. A simple man."He holds out his dead daughter's identity card for us to see. His fingers are covered in her blood.I go to offer my condolence to his other daughter
Alia, who is 35."I don't know what humanity Bush is calling for," she says in English, "Is this the humanity which lost my sister?"We are a working class family which made two academics. It was never easy for my parents or for us. We struggled to get where we are. Our flat is rented, not owned. I receive 75,000 dinars a month as a university teacher, my main subject Shakespeare. The flat costs 35,000 monthly - about $12. We were hoping to get ourselves a proper home when Nadia started working. Now look."Her mother Fawzia raises her hand as if beseeching me. But words fail her and she begins to sob again."We have been looking only for peace and security," Alia says, "We were not interested in collecting money, buying costly clothes. We didn't care about dresses. Just peace and security. Not this." HEARTBREAK: Najem Khalaf eipes the tears from the cheek of his distraught daughter AliaBoth women were still in their nightclothes, dressing gowns loose around them. They said they had risen late because of all the shelling overnight. Like everyone else, they were talking about the electricity being cut off on Thursday night.Nadia was joking about going for a shower. Alia told her she'd probably be away for three hours... just waiting for some water.They were laughing. "I didn't hear any sound," Alia says, "Suddenly a shell or bomb or something came through the room. I fell to the floor. My mouth was full of dust. I was swallowing dust. Then I looked at her."The missile, something big and unexploded, had come through her chest and her heart. She was covered in blood, unconscious. I ran down to the street, Daddy and Mummy behind me, screaming for an ambulance. There wasn't any. A neighbour said he would drive us here to the hospital."We all knew it was too late. But we hoped, we hoped."I tell her that the International Red Cross have said that the majority of civilian casualties have been caused by falling anti-aircraft shells. "I don't know. I don't know. But it is war which has done this. And that war was started by Bush," she says, "Believe me. We have no emnity for foreign people. We never will. We just want to live our lives."A group of men help to put the corpse in a simple wooden coffin. Najem weeps as he kneels before his daughter. His wife and daughter climb into the back of the blue car. The other men place the coffin on the roof rack, put on the lid and secure it with bindings.Alia asks that I send her a copy of this story and I promise somehow to do so. It seems to give her some consolation. The only sort, apart from the spoken word, which I can offer. FINAL JOURNEY: Nadia's simple wooden coffin is taken to her final resting placeAnd so they leave.
FINAL JOURNEY: Nadia's simple wooden coffin is taken to her final resting place
Three people driven by a neighbour with their precious daughter strapped to the roof.Our guide says they will now wash her body, drape it in white and before dusk lay her in the ground.It has been one of the saddest episodes I have ever witnessed in my 26 years reporting for this newspaper.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12811861&method=full&siteid=501 43
[Edited 1 times, lastly by David on 04-06-2003] |
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rainheart
Joined: 03 Oct 2001
Posts: 175
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Sun Apr 06, 2003 7:07 am
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Official US Central Command Statement:
Journalists express skepticism at press conference
www.globalresearch.ca 6 April 2003
The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/USC304A.html
Q General, Jeff Reed (sp) from Sky News. At times, sir, your review sounded almost like a victory speech. Was it? Have you now reached the tipping point? And can I ask the daily weapons-of-mass-destruction question? They haven't been deployed. They haven't been discovered. Is this war going to make history by being ended before you've found its cause?
(Laughter.)
GEN. RENUART: That's a great question. Let me first say that in no way should any of the comments I made be taken as a victory speech. Victory will come, of that there is no doubt. But this fight is far from over. As we have said, we've been about to move into the area of Baghdad city. As you look at the map of Iraq, you'll note that there are many other parts of the country where we have not yet taken control of enemy forces in that region. And so the fight will continue. The fight is far from finished in Baghdad.
interesting?
i don't know, it's kind of boring to read the full press conference, about 3/4 of the way through there's these -
Q Another question. And there are reports from today there's U.S. -- I mean military commander Joe Dowdy sacked. Can you explain that and confirm that, please?
GEN. RENUART: Yeah, I think that was similar to Chas's question up here a moment ago. Yes, the reports are there that a military commander was relieved, but I am not going to speculate on the way. I truly don't know the reasons for that. That is a decision made by a commander on the battlefield, and I have to respect his judgment to do what is right for his situation on the battlefield.
Yes, sir, right on the out line back here.
Q General, Michael Kearns (ph), Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Will the coalition invite any independent analysis of suspected weapons of mass destruction?
GEN. RENUART: I really -- I am probably not able to tell you one way or the other. The battlefield is a pretty dangerous place out there right now, and so it's important for us to gain control of the country and to gain control of sites that might have weapons of mass destruction or evidence of those. And I think that once those are complete those will be, you know, made available in due course. And I am sure there will be thousands of independent people who will do analysis of that information. But right now I can't speculate on when or how that might occur.
Q Hi, Nicole Enfield (ph), Associated Press. You've spoken a lot about the south of Baghdad. We know some coalition troops control the roads to the north. Can you tell us what you are seeing up there? We have reports that some residents are fleeing. Are you seeing that? Are you able to control that? Are you able to control or see if any reinforcements are coming down possibly?
And, second question: One of our embeds has reported some very kind of hand-to-hand combat in the southeast of Baghdad, including some foreign fighters -- Jordanian, Sudanese, Egyptians that were engaging the Marines. Can you speak about that? Is that the first time you've seen a significant number of foreign fighters who have come in to support the regime?
GEN. RENUART: Okay, two good questions, Nicole. Let me go to the second one first, and I'll come back to sort of the status of refugee -- potential refugee movements.
The southeast of the city and the east side of the city is the Marine zone, the first mech is operating in that area. They did have some challenging areas of combat over the last 36 hours, some of it what we would call dismounted combat, which some might call hand-to-hand, but that's basically infantry moving through positions on the battlefield. So I am certain that they probably had some very difficult engagements in that area.
I've seen the reports also of other nationalities fighting on the battlefield. I have no way to confirm that specifically. We certainly would like to get more of that information, and would continue to try to pursue that.
As to does that surprise me, well, we saw in Afghanistan Chechens and members of other countries fighting on the side of al Qaeda. So nothing would surprise me on a battlefield.
Q Back to the first part?
GEN. RENUART: And back to the first part, over the -- have we seen refugees moving out of the --
Q Reinforcements.
GEN. RENUART: And reinforcements. I think we really focus on two aspects both. We want to create a situation where reinforcements don't get into the city, so essentially isolation, if you will, and we will continue to operate with our forces around the city to prevent forces from coming into the city and challenging us.
I think with respect to refugees, we have had some reports of people leaving the city to the north and to the northwest. Again, sort of contrary to the information minister's comment about there's nobody about there -- it's all a virtual war. I think many of the people in Baghdad are concerned, because they know there are coalition forces, and we see reflections of that in some intelligence, that people are saying, ‘Hey, the Americans and the coalition are coming.’ I think there is some concern that they will be caught in a cross-fire. So it's understandable that people will try to leave to move out. We have not seen large numbers -- you know, hundreds of thousands of refugees moving. We have seen in some cases numbers of cars, trucks, et cetera, household goods. In fact, in the Marine zone yesterday we showed -- there was a picture of an elderly gentleman with his car and all of his household goods on the roof trying to leave the city to the southeast. The Marines took very good action to ensure that he was who he was, and that he was not threatening in any way, and allowed him to continue on. Many people in the Baghdad area have family in other parts of the country, and our intent would be to, obviously, to have folks stay in their homes primarily, and as if there is a number of folks that are displacing themselves to get away from the city, we'll try to accommodate that in a manner that doesn't endanger anybody on the battlefield.
Q (Off mike) -- USA Today. The conventional wisdom has been that if the regime felt cornered that it would use weapons of mass destruction. At this point the U.S. military seems to be sending the message that, You are indeed cornered. So could you give me your assessment of what the likelihood is that you think the weapons of mass destruction will be used? And, also, what's the situation with these unconventional attacks? How does that affect the way you will respond in Baghdad?
GEN. RENUART: Well, I hope you are saying that the Iraqi regime is cornered, not we are cornered.
Q Right. The message from the U.S. military is --
GEN. RENUART: Okay, I got that.
Q -- the Iraqi regime is cornered.
GEN. RENUART: There you go. I -- as with any desperate regime -- I don't have a lot of experience in many desperate regimes, but I think any person that feels threatened is likely to lash out in a way that might be unpredictable. So we would not in any way expect that this regime might not take the opportunity to do something desperate and to use a weapon like that, even in the area of its own city where its own people were.
So how does that affect what we do? We continue to have our forces prepared, and clearly they are well trained to operate under the most diverse and difficult situations, to include chemical or biological attacks. And I think that's probably a fair depiction of what I see there.
And then, I'm sorry, I forgot what your first part of it was.
Q The second part was the Iraqi minister has said that there would be these unconventional attacks --
GEN. RENUART: Oh, okay, yeah --
Q Maybe suicide bombing.
GEN. RENUART: Well, he said yesterday that there would be this amazing new attack last night, and I don't know what that was -- unless it was the videos. (Laughter.) You know, we really do prepare our forces for any kind of unusual or unconventional attack. We have seen a number of these technical vehicles, irregular forces assaulting our positions. We had a number of these forces take one of the fire trucks on the airfield in the early days and try to attack an Abrams tank. For those of you who have been out in the road in LA if you get in the way of, you know, a really big, heavy vehicle, you probably lose, and unfortunately this guy took a gamble that was not good for him, and the vehicle was destroyed.
So we will continue to see I think those kinds of tactics. But it does not affect the ability on the battlefield for us to continue to accomplish the mission. The forces that we have train against those unconventional kinds of enemies, just like we train against a conventional enemy. So I am really not -- I don't feel that will be a distracter for us.
Folks, thank you very much. I really appreciate your time today.
for the full text go here http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/Transcripts/20030405.htm
my source for this info was http://www.globalresearch.ca/
an excellent site with tons of info and articles.
rainheart
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David
Joined: 20 Oct 2000
Posts: 1381
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Sun Apr 06, 2003 7:18 am
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Area surgeon aids troops
Boulder man operated on recently rescued POW in Germany
Photo special to the Camera
Gene Bolles operates on a soldier at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
By Lisa Marshall, Camera Staff Writer
April 5, 2003
Friday morning: 57 dead; 16 missing; 7 captured.
The daily White House press briefings and fuzzy real-time TV reports fall far short of conveying the brutality of war, says Boulder neurosurgeon Gene Bolles.
Bolles spent Thursday hunched over an operating table at Germany's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, repairing the broken back of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who was rescued from an Iraqi hospital this week. The 19-year-old soldier will require aggressive rehabilitation, Bolles said, but is expected to recover well — one success story in a war full of tragedy.
"It really is disgustingly sanitized on television," said Bolles, who has spent the last 16 months as chief of neurosurgery at Landstuhl, the destination for the war's most wounded soldiers.
As of Friday, 281 patients had been brought to Landstuhl since Operation Iraqi Freedom started, and plane-loads are arriving regularly.
"We have had a number of really horrific injuries now from the war. They have lost arms, legs, hands, they have been burned, they have had significant brain injuries and peripheral nerve damage. These are young kids that are going to be, in some regards, changed for life. I don't feel that people realize that."
Bolles, 66, had a private practice in Boulder for 32 years before taking the job at Landstuhl. The U.S. military was short on neurosurgeons after Sept. 11, 2001 — having scaled down its medical staff in response to a shrinking troop population in the '90s — and was looking for an experienced civilian doctor willing to work as a contractor for a few years, said Lt. Colonel Bill Monacci, consultant to the Army Surgeon General for neurosurgery.
Bolles, a self-described "pacifist," found his patriotic juices flowing in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, so he postponed his retirement and took the job to help out with Operation Enduring Freedom, the war on terrorism in Afghanistan.
"I was looking for any way to help out," said Bolles. "Not to fight a war necessarily, but to help out."
He is one of only a handful of civilian doctors among the mostly military staff at Landstuhl, the largest military hospital outside the United States. Until this week, he was the only neurosurgeon, taking anyone with back, neck, spine or head injuries.
While Monacci said he thinks the number of wounded has been relatively low given the scope of the war, Bolles has handled an increasingly heavy workload exceptionally well, he said.
"It is a tough situation. He probably thought it was going to be a bit of a slow-down from his practice, but I imagine it is a little busier than he planned for," Monacci said
Bolles said despite media images that may lead the public to believe otherwise, he and the other doctors at Landstuhl have been busy for months.
Before the war began, the hospital already had treated 300 U.S. soldiers from Kuwait and surrounding areas, wounded in car accidents, windstorms and during training exercises. A brutal sandstorm landed five soldiers on Bolles' operating table. The wind blew a tent pole through the skull of one soldier and toppled heavy equipment onto another, fracturing his spine, he said.
Still affected by the carnage he saw as a division flight surgeon during the Vietnam War, Bolles said he is particularly troubled by the injuries he has seen coming from Operation Iraqi Freedom, a war he doesn't necessarily support.
"I am opposed to any war," he said. "I am doing what I am doing because I am a doctor, not because I have a political agenda."
He spent three hours in the operating room one morning last week removing bullet fragments, blood and brain matter from two young soldiers who each had been shot in the head. One will recover nicely, Bolles said; the other will have permanent neurological damage.
Another of his patients, wounded in a grenade battle, died on the operating table.
"These are young children; 18, 19, 20 with arms and legs blown off. That is the reality," said Bolles.
Lt. Col. John Ogle, a Longmont emergency room doctor and flight surgeon for the National Guard, agrees that the public is not always given an accurate count of military injuries. But he says that is because an accurate number is often hard to come by: What exactly constitutes wounded?
"I would not call the war coverage sanitized," he said. "Everybody knows that there are casualties over there, mostly Iraqi. What has not been stressed enough is what it was like in the previous 12 years of Saddam's regime."
As things heat up on the battlefield, Bolles' workload is getting heavier.
Soldiers arrive daily in C-141 transport planes after the eight-hour flight from Iraq: 46 on Friday, 39 today, 38 on Sunday, 25 on Monday.
To brace for the flood of patients, the hospital has doubled its capacity to 322 beds and called up 600 medical reservists, including two more neurosurgeons. Bolles admitted four new patients Friday and was preparing to go back into the emergency room that night.
"The feeling here originally was, this is going to be over in a couple days," Bolles said.
His work is rewarding: He recently received a letter from a soldier who suffered a severe brain injury in a bomb blast in Afghanistan a few months ago. He'd recovered well and is getting married.
Working on the recently rescued Pfc. Lynch, who is not much older than Bolles' own daughter, was particularly rewarding, yet troubling.
"Nineteen years old and she's out there carrying a big gun," he said.
His assignment with Landstuhl should expire within a year or two, but Bolles has no plans to retire. Instead, he's looking into signing up with the relief agency Doctors without Borders.
"I could feel just as needed if I were in Iraq taking care of the people there who needed my services," he said.
http://www.bouldernews.com/bdc/county_news/article/0%2C1713%2CBDC_2423_1866804%2C00.html
[Edited 1 times, lastly by David on 04-06-2003] |
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theseeker
Joined: 25 Jul 2000
Posts: 3403
Location: Damnit...I'm a doctor jim |
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Sun Apr 06, 2003 7:23 am
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Hard to see the links with your head inserted up to your neck...
voice of experience talking...
david does community service at the zoo
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rainheart
Joined: 03 Oct 2001
Posts: 175
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Sun Apr 06, 2003 7:33 am
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The Battle of Baghdad
'Ever so slowly, the suburbs were turned into battlefields'
By Robert Fisk
06 April 2003
The Iraqi bodies were piled high in the pick-up truck in front of me, army boots hanging over the tailboard, a soldier with a rifle sitting beside them. Beside the highway, a squad of troops was stacking grenades as the ground beneath us vibrated with the impact of US air strikes. The area was called Qadisiya. It was Iraq's last front line. Thus did the Battle for Baghdad enter its first hours, a conflict that promises to be both dirty and cruel
Beside the highway, the Iraqi armoured vehicle was still smouldering, a cloud of blue-grey smoke rising above the plane trees under which its crew had been sheltering. Two trucks were burnt out on the other side of the road. The American Apache helicopters had left just a few minutes before I arrived. A squad of soldiers, flat on their stomachs, were setting up an anti-armour weapon on the weed-strewn pavement, aiming at the empty airport motorway for the first American tanks to come thrashing down the highway.
Then there were the Iraqi bodies, piled high in the back of a pick-up truck in front of me, army boots hanging over the tailboard, a soldier with an automatic rifle sitting beside them. Beside the highway, a squad of troops was stacking rocket-propelled grenades beside a row of empty shops as the ground beneath us vibrated with the impact of American air strikes and shellfire. The area was called Qadisiya. It was Iraq's last front line.
Thus did the Battle for Baghdad enter its first hours yesterday, a conflict that promises to be both dirty and cruel. Even the city's police force was sent to the front, its officers parading in a fleet of squad cars through the central streets, waving their newly issued Kalashnikov rifles from the windows.
What is one to say of such frantic, impersonal – and, yes, courageous – chaos? A truck crammed with more than a hundred Iraqi troops, many in blue uniforms, all of them carrying rifles which gleamed in the morning sunlight, sped past me towards the airport. A few made victory signs in the direction of my car – I confess to touching 145km an hour on the speedometer – but of course one had to ask what their hearts were telling them. "Up the line to death" was the phrase that came to mind. Two miles away, at the Yarmouk hospital, the surgeons stood in the car park in blood-stained overalls; they had already handled their first intake of military casualties.
A few hours later, an Iraqi minister was to tell the world that the Republican Guard had just retaken the airport from the Americans, that they were under fire but had won "a great victory". Around Qadisiya, however, it didn't look that way. Tank crews were gunning their T-72s down the highway past the main Baghdad railway yards in a convoy of armoured personnel carriers and Jeeps and clouds of thick blue exhaust fumes. The more modern T-82s, the last of the Soviet-made fleet of battle tanks, sat hull down around Jordan Square with a clutch of BMP armoured vehicles.
The Americans were coming. The Americans were claiming to be in the inner suburbs of Baghdad – which was untrue; indeed, the story was designed, I'm sure, to provoke panic and vulnerability among the Iraqis.
True or false, the stories failed. Across vast fields of sand and dirt and palm groves, I saw batteries of Sam-6 anti-aircraft missiles and multiple Katyusha rocket launchers awaiting the American advance. The soldiers around them looked relaxed, some smoking cigarettes in the shade of the palm trees or sipping fruit juice brought to them by the residents of Qadisiya whose homes – heaven help them – were now in the firing line.
But then there was the white-painted Japanese pick-up truck that pulled out in front of my car. At first, I thought the soldiers on the back were sleeping, covered in blankets to keep them warm. Yet I had opened my car window to keep cool this early summer morning and I realised that all the soldiers – there must have been 15 of them in the little truck – were lying on top of each other, all with their heavy black military boots dangling over the tailboard. The two soldiers on the vehicles sat with their feet wedged between the corpses. So did America's first victims of the day go to their eternal rest.
"Today, we attack," the Minister of Information, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, was to announced an hour later, and he reeled off a list of Iraqi "victories" to sustain his country's morale. Seven British and American tanks destroyed around Basra, four American personnel carriers and an American aircraft destroyed near Baghdad. At the airport, the Iraqis "confronted the enemy and slaughtered them". Or so we were told.
Well, an Iraqi friend of mine who lives near the airport told me that he had seen a tank on fire, a tank with a black "V" sign painted on its armour. The "V" is the American symbol of "friendly force", intended to warn their pilots from bombing their own soldiers by mistake. So this must have been an American tank.
But Mr Sahaf's optimism got the better of him. Yes, he told journalists in Baghdad, Doura was safe, Qadisiya was safe. Yarmouk was safe. "Go and look for yourselves," he challenged. Ministry of Information officials were ashen-faced. And when foreign correspondents were bussed off on this over-confident adventure, they were turned back at the Yarmouk hospital and the ministry buses firmly ordered to carry reporters back to their hotel.
But an earlier 35-minute journey around the shell-embraced suburbs proved one thing yesterday: that the Iraqis – up till dusk at least – were preparing to fight the invaders. I found their 155mm artillery around the centre of the city, close to the rail lines. One artillery piece was even hauled up Abu Nawas Street beside the Tigris by a truck whose soldiers held up their rifles and shouted their support for Saddam Hussein.
And all day, the air raids continued. It gets confusing, amid the dust and smoke, all these new targets and new pockets of ruination. Was the grey-powdered rubble in Karada a building yesterday, or was it struck last week? The central telephone exchange had taken another hit. So had the communications centre in Yarmouk. And then I noticed, along the front line where the Iraqi soldiers were preparing to become heroes or "martyrs" or survivors – the last an infinitely preferable outcome to the sanest of soldiers – how small craters had been punched into the flowerbeds on the central reservations.
Ever so slowly, the suburbs of Baghdad were being turned into battlefields.
6 April 2003 01:30
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=394486
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Proud Veteran
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Posts: 212
Location: United States |
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Sun Apr 06, 2003 7:35 am
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Ya know, I thought that was him.
And Mech, the propaganda war is being waged by the sites you and David link to
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Proud Veteran on 04-06-2003] |
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David
Joined: 20 Oct 2000
Posts: 1381
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Sun Apr 06, 2003 7:42 am
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Or PV looking for seeker...
Picture removed by FLKook
[Edited 3 times, lastly by FLKook on 04-06-2003] |
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David
Joined: 20 Oct 2000
Posts: 1381
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Sun Apr 06, 2003 7:58 am
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PV. You think the Dr.working on the war wounded is propaganda or the photo of the dead girl is.
Maybe you should write to the good Dr. and tell him he's a liar and his comments are only propaganda. Or write the British reporter doing the story on the Iraqi girl and her family and tell him his story is mere propaganda.
You and seeker share the same cold, heartless attitude towards your fellow man.
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theseeker
Joined: 25 Jul 2000
Posts: 3403
Location: Damnit...I'm a doctor jim |
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Sun Apr 06, 2003 9:39 am
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that picture is offensive and should be removed.
david mentions news that has been proven propaganda...the 2 women were suicide bombers...the children were victims of saddam's armies poor aim...
shut up david you are plain stupid anti-U.S and share the same tasteless appreciation for sick and twisted photographs as gasbag...
a well fought and humane war
SUPPORT THE TROOPS !
[Edited 1 times, lastly by theseeker on 04-06-2003] |
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