You don't get to define parameter of my repsonse, my friend.

Wouldn't have gone "in." Just sat on the border.

If I were stupid enough to go in, I would have gone in BIGTIME. No holds barred, and not on the cheap.

Fallujah could have been er, subdued a year ago, if considered a priority. With enough grunts then.

Now? Well, since it's already fubar, just punt.

Throw in everything between now and the measley prez election. Empty the bunks elsewhere.

IE, finally take it seriously.

After the election draw out everyone but Allawi's security and wish him luck.

The most difficult work of the battle of Fallujah lies ahead, Natonski said. The work of setting up a local government and restoring order is expected to be tougher than the ground battle.

The most difficult work of the battle of Fallujah lies ahead, Natonski said. The work of setting up a local government and restoring order is expected to be tougher than the ground battle.

- " An Iraqi youth walks past a blazing pipeline near the town of Taji November 14, 2004 after it was attacked by insurgents." Photo by Stringer/Iraq/Reuters

This is a job the US is ill-equipped to do.

Lord have mercy. I hope that photo is not overly symbolic.

Lord have mercy. I hope that photo is not overly symbolic.
And that is the story of Iraq. So it has been writ.

lil bart, et al,

No, it is only half the story.
(COMMENT)

(This probably does need to be said - but - it helps me to remain focused.)

As it is with most controversial issues, Iraq and it’s security (like a coin) have two sides in to be viewed and assessed.  Like the pre-War intelligence, you cannot cherry-pick the stream of information and base your assessment on that flow – AND THEN - expect to derive a clear picture.

You must look at the entire stream and attempt to balance (through a comparison and contrasting method) favorable outcomes against unfavorable outcomes.  You must examine what “new” consequences we face as a result of the actions we take against the preparedness to deal effectively with those consequences. 

Each foreign policy aspect we (as a nation) implement and each military engagement we (as a force) initiate has its own story, its own set of variables and its own background which we all must come to appreciate before we make an informed judgment and become critical – relative to the expectations we want to see and the performance measures we assign to success.

It is also important to remember that ALL operations, which we selectively initiate (“successful” or “not so successful”), have room for improvement.  There is no such thing as a “perfect operation.”  The measure of success is in the comparison between what we expected to achieve (prior to the commencement of the operation) and what we actual realize (after the completion).  This is true for both political objectives as well as military objectives.

Critical evaluations are best argued when you have a clear theme.  A questionsWe have to look at the entire country might be posed:

Is Iraq any more safe after the Falluja Operation, then it was before the operations?

Could the outcome realized after the Falluja Operations, been achieved through any other option?

In order to address these questions, we have to look at pre- Fallujah  Operations Security in a “whole country view” and compare it to post- Fallujah  operations. 

Did the operation quell insurgent activity or did it increase insurgent activity?

Has the intensity of insurgency operations increased or decreased after the operation?

What level of support does the indigenous population have for the insurgency?

Is the insurgency growing faster or has it been retarded?

Is the Interim Government more stable, or has the factional coalition been splintered after the operation?

Did the Iraqi internal security forces demonstrate any success at being able to conduct successful independent operations, or has the American training program failed to achieve the desired effect?

These and other questions need to be the essentials in any objective critique of the post- Fallujah Operation.

I would be interested in hearing the Discussion Group’s candid thoughts (positive and negative).

Most Resepctfully,
Rocco Rosano
Reynoldsburg, OH
prosano@insight.rr.com

Now tell us whether you've been & gone, or are going.

lil bart,

Not left yet, but (according to the powers-that-be) I am still scheduled to go.
(COMMENT)

I will probably leave Friday for DC to start in-processing and receive my up-date training the following Monday.  Plans are not totally finalized.  I will be embarraed as hell if I don't pass the physical.

Regards,
Rocco

lil bart,

Not left yet, but (according to the powers-that-be) I am still scheduled to go.
(COMMENT)

I will probably leave Friday for DC to start in-processing and receive my up-date training the following Monday.  Plans are not totally finalized.  I will be embarraed as hell if I don't pass the physical.

Regards,
Rocco

Did the operation quell insurgent activity or did it increase insurgent activity?

Has the intensity of insurgency operations increased or decreased after the operation?

What level of support does the indigenous population have for the insurgency?

Is the insurgency growing faster or has it been retarded?

Is the Interim Government more stable, or has the factional coalition been splintered after the operation?

Did the Iraqi internal security forces demonstrate any success at being able to conduct successful independent operations, or has the American training program failed to achieve the desired effect?

These and other questions need to be the essentials in any objective critique of the post- Fallujah Operation.

I would be interested in hearing the Discussion Group’s candid thoughts (positive and negative).

Most Resepctfully,
Rocco Rosano
Reynoldsburg, OH
prosano@insight.rr.com

The Baby Boomers, celebrated by liberals in the 1960s as the “finest young generation we have ever produced,” will likely go down in U.S. history as the most self-indulgent and selfish.

To sustain our appetite for foreign goods, the world is being flooded with dollars. But there are signs that world is growing weary of financing our consumption. The price of oil, denominated in dollars, has soared to $55 a barrel. The price of gold has risen from $260 an ounce to $420. The dollar has lost a third of its value against the euro under Bush. The world is betting against us.

The only question seems to be: will the dollar’s decline be gradual or will there be a run on the dollar, as with the Mexican peso? If the latter, the Fed would have to raise U.S. interest rates to bring investors back into the market to buy the Treasury bonds to finance our budget deficit. Then, bye-bye recovery.

A sinking dollar also means rising prices for imports, which are now near a two-century high at 15 percent of our entire economy.

The deindustrialization of America could be reversed if we were willing to return to Hamiltonian economics, rewrite our tax and trade laws, and dump the WTO into the Atlantic. But the transnational corporations that finance both parties will not allow it, for their executives have grown royally rich transferring factories out of the United States into the low-wage countries of Asia and the Third World.

The dirty little secret of our era is that the interests of Middle America are now in conflict with the interests of America’s corporate elites. They are anxious to get out of the United States and shed their American work force.

In sustaining the empire, we are suffering from a separate deficit—of imperial troops. With an army of only 480,000, only a fraction of them combat troops, we cannot both defeat the rising Iraqi insurgency and credibly threaten Iran and North Korea with a preventive war to achieve regime change. And Iran and North Korea know it.
http://www.amconmag.com/2004_11_22/buchanan.html

so far my take is that we 'destroyed Falluja to save it.'

"The Sunnis, but the Kurds as well - they are extremely restive now - are afraid that we are giving the country away to the pro-Iranians [and] there will be an Islamic republic, and they will be oppressed,'' says Bruner. "We have to make an Iraq that has guarantees for significant minorities and insignificant ones, too. We're not doing that, just alienating people."

As things stand now, Bruner expects a large number of Sunnis - who make up about 20 percent of the population but were favored under Saddam Hussein and have ruled Iraq for almost its entire history - won't participate in elections. If that happens, "you will get a Kurdish/Shia split in elections which will guarantee civil war... we have got to do something to make it clear the Sunnis have a role to play."..."

That is rather worrisome.

Perhaps they have not commented on it for fear that their comments would cement the impression that this is a religous conflict.

Yes, I agree, Bee....

Terrorism is not a religion...

With the way the war was waged early on, even before last tragic March 31, what happened was a given. Had to happen. And just the way it did.

I don't think casualities on either side would have been worse in November '3. But without taking control of Fallujah early on, BushInc sealed the deal. Using the locals as per the Afghanistan model to provide er, security was stupid. Given the profile of Fallujah, just plain negligence.

So the Invasion of Fallujah just had to happen.

Rebels Attack in Central Iraq and the North
By EDWARD WONG and JAMES GLANZ

Published: November 16, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 15 - A rebel counteroffensive swept through central and northern Iraq on Monday as American troops struggled to flush the remaining insurgents from the rubble-strewn streets of Falluja.

Guerrillas in Baquba, Mosul, Kirkuk and Suwaira stormed police stations, set oil wells ablaze and struck at American military convoys with suicide car bombs, routing Iraqi security forces in several coordinated assaults and severely damaging parts of the country's petroleum-based economic lifeline.

A five-hour gun battle broke out in the southernmost reaches of Falluja Monday morning, a day after tanks and other armored vehicles fought their way through the area and had seemingly quashed all remaining resistance to the weeklong offensive. But some rebels had stayed hidden in the bombed-out landscape of the district and came out fighting around dawn, killing at least two marines.

"They're clearly fighting until the last man,'' said Lt. Col. Gareth Brandl, commander of the First Battalion, Eighth Regiment, First Marine Expeditionary Force.

The wave of attacks across the Sunni Muslim heartland suggested that guerrillas were ready to carry on the war despite the loss of their safe haven in Falluja. The most intense fighting took place in the morning in Baquba, northeast of the capital. Insurgents there ambushed American troops near a downtown police station and laid siege to another station in a southern suburb.

As the Americans battled near the first station, more insurgents began firing down on them from a nearby mosque, said Capt. Bill Coppernoll, a spokesman for the Army's First Infantry Division. The fighting became so intense that American jets dropped two 500-pound bombs on the insurgents, and up to 20 fighters were killed, he said.

Overnight, insurgents attacked an oil storage tank in the north and set fire to four oil wells. In Mosul, torn by a daring revolt that began last week, guerrillas tried ramming an American patrol and a checkpoint with suicide car bombs, wounding at least five soldiers. The Iraqi interior minister, Falah al-Naqib, said he expected the rebels to mount more ambitious strikes.

"Today, it's quieter in Mosul, but we expect a surge in attacks in the coming two days,'' he said at a news conference in Baghdad.

On Sunday, he said, insurgents snatched a wounded policeman from his hospital bed, killed and mutilated the man and hung his corpse in a public area.

Since the American-led invasion of Iraq 19 months ago, the insurgents have demonstrated a remarkable adaptability in the face of vastly superior American firepower. American commanders acknowledge that rebel leaders fled Falluja in the days before the invasion and are probably behind the current counteroffensive.

On Monday evening, an Internet audio recording attributed to the country's most wanted militant leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, exhorted fighters in Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle to keep up the war against the Americans.

"Once they have finished in Falluja, they will head toward you,'' Mr. Zarqawi said. "You must not let them succeed in their plan.''

"The war is very long, and always think of this as the beginning,'' he said. "And always make the enemy think that yesterday was better than today.''
more

Now it looks as though we'll have "Mushroom cloud" Condi as Secretary of State.

She missed the memo "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" and she is promoted.

Will anyone be disciplined for the miserable failures of the Bush administration, or will all the morons be promoted?

Former G.I.'s, Ordered to War, Fight Not to Go
By MONICA DAVEY

Published: November 16, 2004

The Army has encountered resistance from more than 2,000 former soldiers it has ordered back to military work, complicating its efforts to fill gaps in the regular troops.

Many of these former soldiers - some of whom say they have not trained, held a gun, worn a uniform or even gone for a jog in years - object to being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan now, after they thought they were through with life on active duty.

They are seeking exemptions, filing court cases or simply failing to report for duty, moves that will be watched closely by approximately 110,000 other members of the Individual Ready Reserve, a corps of soldiers who are no longer on active duty but still are eligible for call-up.

In the last few months, the Army has sent notices to more than 4,000 former soldiers informing them that they must return to active duty, but more than 1,800 of them have already requested exemptions or delays, many of which are still being considered.

And, of about 2,500 who were due to arrive on military bases for refresher training by Nov. 7, 733 had not shown up.

Army officials say the call-up is proceeding at rates they anticipated, and they are trying to fill needed jobs with former soldiers as they did in the Persian Gulf war of 1991.

Still, the resistance puts further strain on a military that has summoned reserve troops in numbers not seen since World War II and forced thousands of soldiers in Iraq to postpone their departures when their enlistment obligations ended.

Tensions are flaring between the Army and some of its veterans, who say they are surprised and confused about their obligations and unsure where to turn.

"I consider myself a civilian," said Rick Howell, a major from Tuscaloosa, Ala., who said he thought he had left the Army behind in 1997 after more than a decade flying helicopters. "I've done my time. I've got a brand new baby and a wife, and I haven't touched the controls of an aircraft in seven years. I'm 47 years old. How could they be calling me? How could they even want me?"

Some former soldiers acknowledge that the Army has every right to call them back, but argue that their personal circumstances - illness, single parenthood, financial woes - make going overseas impossible now.

Others say they do not believe they are eligible to be returned to active duty because, they contend, they already finished the obligations they signed up for when they joined the military. A handful of such former soldiers, scattered across the country, have filed lawsuits making that claim in federal courts.

These former soldiers are not among the part-time soldiers - reservists and National Guard members - who receive paychecks and train on weekends, and who have been called up in large numbers over the last three years.

Instead, these are members of the Individual Ready Reserve, a pool of former soldiers seldom ordered back to work. Ordinarily, these former soldiers do not get military pay, nor do they train. They receive points toward a military retirement and an address form to update once a year.

When soldiers enlist, they typically agree to an eight-year commitment to the Army but often are allowed to end active duty sooner. Some of them join the Reserves or National Guard to complete their commitment; others finish their time in the Individual Ready Reserve.

For officers, the commitment does not expire unless they formally resign their commissions in writing, a detail some insist they did not know and were not told when they signed their contracts, although Army officials strongly dispute that.

Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, a spokeswoman for the Army, said people in the service are well aware of the provision. "We all know about it," Colonel Hart said.

She said problems with the call-ups of former soldiers have involved a relatively small number of people, are being worked out, and are hardly unique to this conflict. In the first gulf war, she said, more than 20,000 former soldiers were called up. With medical problems and no-shows, only about 14,400 were actually deployed, she said.

Most of the deployments in the first gulf war lasted 120 days, the Army said. The current call-ups are more likely to last a year.

Recruiting, the Bolshivik way....

Now it looks as though we'll have "Mushroom cloud" Condi as Secretary of State.

She missed the memo "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" and she is promoted.

Will anyone be disciplined for the miserable failures of the Bush administration, or will all the morons be promoted?

He's promoting a bunch of young "yes men"

no dissent

no dissent

He's promoting a bunch of young "yes men"

no dissent

no dissent

Bring back Bill Moyers' Daisy commercial. Send it to your congress people. 

What has that got to do with either Condoleeza Rice being promoted after being a miserable failure or the total lack of responsibility in the White House?

Gee, davis, don't you know that's pretty much univeral, SOP? Haven't you always felt you could do a much better job then any boss you ever worked for? It's the same deal.

On Feb. 5, 2003, in an appearance before the United Nations Security Council, Mr. Powell, the retired four-star general and former national security adviser, held up a vial of white powder as a symbol of what he claimed - falsely, as it turned out - were Iraq's huge stockpiles of anthrax. He offered a scathing indictment of Saddam Hussein. "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources,'' he said. "These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."

As an increasingly angry world soon learned, Mr. Powell in fact offered half-truths, poorly analyzed intelligence and outright fantasies, from a nuclear weapons program in Baghdad that didn't exist to wildly exaggerated estimates of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons stockpiles and its ties to Al Qaeda.

But at the time, Mr. Powell's performance convinced many Americans skeptical about the war that the Iraqi government was a clear and present danger to the rest of the world. His enormous stature and his image as a moderating force within the administration - valued especially by America's European allies - were squandered in defending a unilateral decision he did not agree with to launch a war in which he did not really seem to believe.

You called her "Mushroom Cloud". Does that help you figure it out?

"On Sunday, he said, insurgents snatched a wounded policeman from his hospital bed, killed and mutilated the man and hung his corpse in a public area."

And I always thought George H.W. Bush was making a big mistake by not finishing Hussein off in 1991.

Will you lefties make up your minds? Coalition or not? If you use a coalition, you do what the coalition wants. Bush 41 used a coalition and wasn't free to do whatever he pleased.

Bush41's reasons for NOT taking out Saddam must be ringing in Dubya's ears.

Even conservatives like Jay Severin (on Imus this AM) says that as soon as we discovered there were no WMD's we should have gotten out.  He said we are not going to turn Baghdad into Phoenix in 2 years given the region's thousand-year tradition of tribal brutality over who loves the right God the right way.

I disagree with Severin that we should have left Iraq with a power vacuum.  My point is that it isn't just "lefties" who are second guessing this thing.

btw, Eric Sites of MSNBC needs to find the "erase" button on his forqing video camera and STFU.

Will you lefties make up your minds? Coalition or not? If you use a coalition, you do what the coalition wants. Bush 41 used a coalition and wasn't free to do whatever he pleased.

So, it was his coalition partners that prevented him from going in "all the way"? So, all the contemporaneous analyses by administration and military folks, Cheney included, was mostly rationalization, to cover the fact that we were compelled by our coalition allies not to do it? That sounds like science-fiction to me. Bush41 did not want to take out Saddam, and neither did any of our Arab allies (nor the Europeans). They wanted to "put him in his place", get him away from Saudi Arabia's oil fields, knock him down to size, but leave him in place.

That was my reading of the tea leaves too, Nomarchy.  Since Gulf I, I also suspect we lost contact with what was going on within Saddam's administration (maybe we lost a well-placed intelligence asset).

Now it looks as though we'll have "Mushroom cloud" Condi as Secretary of State.

She missed the memo "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" and she is promoted.

Will anyone be disciplined for the miserable failures of the Bush administration, or will all the morons be promoted?

I seem to remember that the new NSC advisor, Stephen Hadley, was the guy that held the terrorism portfolio on Condi's behalf prior to 9-11. The NSC was the forum in which the CIA/FBI/State intelligence stovepipes were to be merged and action taken.