November 26, 2004

Weapons cache biggest yet - The Washington Times: World - November 26, 2004

American troops said yesterday they had uncovered the largest weapons cache to date in Fallujah,
[This is alarming as it seems there were enough arms for the "insurgents" to take over the whole of Iraq!
Good thing we re-took the town!] where Iraqi officials said more than 2,000 people died in the weeklong U.S.-led offensive aimed at curbing the insurgency so that elections could be held nationwide.

    
The Fallujah siege angered many in the influential Sunni minority, producing calls to boycott the vote, a move that could cost the new government much-needed legitimacy.
[Both Iraqi interim president Allawi and President Bush are very unlikely to allow that the elections be delayed; it's important for the enemy that they be delayed so that they can work their chaos and confusion, so any postponement isn't going to happen.
It's not good to send the message that their terrorist murder and intimidation is working in any way!--Jen]
    
The weapons cache, described by the U.S. military as the largest uncovered so far in Fallujah, was discovered Wednesday in the Saad Bin Abi Waqas Mosque, where fugitive rebel leader Abdullah al-Janabi often preached.
[So much for the evildoers' theory that their mosques are "holy centers of peace"...!--J.T.]
    
Troops found small arms, artillery shells, heavy machine guns, and anti-tank mines inside the mosque, the U.S. military said.
   
 U.S. forces also uncovered what may have been a mobile bomb-making factory as well as mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, launchers, and parts of surface-to-air weapons systems elsewhere in the mosque compound, the military added.
[Mosques are proving to be nothing but arsenals and jihadi enlistment and battle-planning centers.
Hope this doesn't apply to mosques in this country and in Europe, but I'll bet that it does.]
    
At a press conference in Baghdad, National Security Adviser Qassem Dawoud said troops found the suspected chemical lab in the southwestern district of Fallujah, where pockets of insurgents are still holding out following the Nov. 8 U.S.-Iraqi assault.
    
"We also found in the laboratory manuals and instructions spelling out procedures for making explosives," he said. "They also spoke about making anthrax."
[...]
One of the pictures showed a row of plastic-covered computer terminals and chairs.
[If you doubted that cyber pys-ops were part of the war...--Jen]
    
Mr. Dawoud also said a key aide of Al Qaeda-linked terror boss Abu Musab Zarqawi, who was believed to have been based in Fallujah, had been arrested in Mosul, where insurgents rose up this month in support of the Fallujah fighters.
    
Mr. Dawoud identified him only as Abu Saeed and did not say whether he had fled Fallujah. The Iraqi official said the death toll for the entire Fallujah operation stood at more than 2,085, although he gave no breakdown. About 54 U.S. troops were among those killed.

God rest our fallen.
Now, rebel [Sunni] forces are trying to negotiate with Arabic blather what they can't gain by force of arms any longer since we launched Operation Plymouth Rock (the Allied offensive to retake control of Fallujah)--the forestalling or postponement (hopefully forever, if they can swing it) of the scheduled election.
I hope that we won't let them prevail, as they seem hell-bent (literally) on preventing any freely-elected government from reflecting the fact that 60% of the Iraqi population is Shi-ite and only 10-20% are Sunni.
Isn't it curious that 17 Iraqi Sunni political "parties" have met with Adnan Pachachi to ask for a delay, whereas 18 months ago, before we launched OIF, there had been only one political party--Saddam's Baathist Party--in all of Iraq for decades?
Looks like the Freedom thing has caught on fast in Iraq, but these enemies of Freedom are still working to take it back to a one-party oligarchy any way they can.
Let's not let them and let our guys press on to total victory!