April 30, 2004

Deal Over Fallujah Remains Uncertain

 U.S. Marines negotiated a plan Thursday to pull back forces from Fallujah, a move that could lift a nearly monthlong siege and allow an Iraqi force led by a former Saddam Hussein-era general to handle security. Fresh clashes broke out despite news of the proposal, and U.S. warplanes dropped bombs on insurgent targets.

Ten U.S. soldiers and a South African civilian were killed in attacks elsewhere, including eight Americans who died when a bomb hit as they tried to clear explosives from a road south of Baghdad.
[So very sad. God rest their souls.--J.T.]

Negotiations were also taking place in the southern city of Najaf, where tribal leaders and police discussed a proposal to end the U.S. standoff and for followers of a radical Shiite cleric to leave the city.

U.S. military commanders met with former Iraqi generals Thursday to discuss details of the Fallujah proposal, Marine Capt. James Edge said.
[...]
In an apparent gesture to help the Fallujah negotiations, U.S. authorities Thursday released the imam of the city's main mosque, Sheik Jamal Shaker Nazzal, an outspoken opponent of the U.S. occupation who was arrested in October.

One possible sticking point was a U.S. demand for insurgents to turn over those responsible for the March 31 killing and mutilation of four American contract workers, whose bodies were burned and dragged through the streets. Di Rita said winning assurances that the perpetrators would be turned over remains a U.S. goal of the Fallujah talks.

The plan for the Iraqi force outlined a surprising new way to find an "Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem," said Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne. It envisions a force of some 1,100 members called the Fallujah Protective Army.

The force, which would replace the Marine cordon and move into the city as U.S. troops pull back, would be led by a leading general from Saddam's army and include Iraqis with "military experience" from the Fallujah region, Byrne said.

It could even include gunmen who fought with guerrillas against the Americans — particularly ex-soldiers disgruntled over losing their jobs when the United States disbanded the old Iraqi army, another Marine officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The new force would not include "hardcore" insurgents or Islamic militants holed up in the city, the officer said. Many of the guerrillas in Fallujah are believed to be former members of Saddam's regime or military.
[...]
Marines on the south side of the city began packing up gear Thursday in preparation to withdraw and breaking down earthen berms and other security barriers. But Byrne later said the timing for a pullback was unclear.
[...]
U.S. Marines encircled the city of 200,000 on April 5. Hospital officials said more than 600 Iraqis, many of them civilians, were killed in the fighting along with eight U.S. Marines. But the figures were disputed by Iraq's health ministry and an exact toll was not known.

As negotiations continued, so did the fighting that Fallujah has seen since the beginning of the week. Marines and guerrillas skirmished, with blasts and sporadic gunfire heard from the northern part of the city. Residents reported buildings on fire.

Three F/A-18 Hornets flying off the aircraft carrier USS George Washington
[Woohoo!! Nice to hear our carriers are still in theater!--Jen]
in the Persian Gulf dropped three 500-pound bombs Thursday on targets in the Fallujah area in support of Marines, Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Danny Hernandez said.

Witnesses reported rockets fired into the Golan neighborhood, a bastion of the insurgency, and two houses were on fire. Ambulances and fire engines had to turn back amid the gunfire. Marines and guerrillas have clashed repeatedly in the northern district since Monday.
[...]
U.S. forces were also in negotiations for the holy Shiite city of Najaf, where the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has been holed up.

Ahmed Shaybani, a spokesman for al-Sadr, told The Associated Press that talks were under way between Najaf police and tribal leaders about ending the U.S. standoff. He said a proposal emerged under which al-Sadr followers would hand over security to the Najaf police and the Mahdi army would leave the city.
[...]
Meanwhile, eight U.S. soldiers were killed Thursday when their team from the 1st Armored Division was attacked while removing roadside bombs from a key highway, near the town of Mahmudiyah, south of the capital, the military said in a statement.

A driver in a station wagon neared the team, then "detonated an explosive device," the statement said.

Earlier Thursday, another U.S. soldier from the Texas-based 1st Cavalry Division was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade attack on his patrol in eastern Baghdad, the military said. A U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their convoy outside the city of Baqouba, 24 miles north of the capital, the military said.

Even though we mourn and regret the death of every American soldier, the casualties aren't very high.
Good to hear that we've given the enemy a small show of force, too, but I don't think it's enough to make the bad guys "believers" yet.
And I don't know about our plan to use ex-Saddamites and Baathists, but I trust the judgement of our officers on the ground in Iraq and one thing's for sure: while our troops have to "guess" who the enemy is in urban warfare situations like Falluja, the ex-Saddamites will know for sure who are wearing the black turbans.
Look for these sieges to continue a while longer.
Apparently, the Islamist killers aren't yet convinced that when the U.S. military shows up at your door, your days are truly numbered.
They keep waiting for that "Black Hawk Down" phenomenon to kick in and that's not going to happen (...because Bill Clinton isn't the CoC! Good thing the hand- over in Iraq is 4 months before the election when they think a President Kerry could get elected and pull our troops out.)

U.N. OIL PAPERS VANISH

The vast majority of the United Nations' oil-for-food contracts in Iraq have mysteriously vanished, crippling investigators trying to uncover fraud in the program, a government report charged yesterday.

The General Accounting Office report, presented at a congressional hearing into the scandal-plagued program, determined that 80 percent of U.N. records had not been turned over.

The world body claims it transferred all information it had - including 3,059 contracts worth about $6.2 billion for delivery of food and other civilian goods to the post-Saddam governing body, the Coalition Provisional Authority.

But the GAO report also found that a database the U.N. transferred to the authority was "unreliable because it contained mathematical and currency errors in calculation of contract costs," the report found.

The GAO findings, which were aired at a hearing of the House International Relations Committee, raise new questions about corruption and mismanagement in the biggest-ever U.N. aid program - and what has been called the biggest financial scandal in history. An earlier GAO report said Saddam ripped off over $10 billion.

Committee Chairman Henry Hyde said the report raised serious concerns - and could have "a potential impact on the reputation and credibility of the United Nations."

"If these charges prove true, some of the obvious victims are those Iraqis who failed to receive needed assistance," Hyde (R-Ill.) said.

"But the damage extends further. The massive windfall resulting from this organized theft allowed Saddam to maintain his grip on the country, line his pockets and make companies and countries dance to his tune, with consequences we are still trying to contain."

Hmmm. Would those countries be France, Germany and Russia, inter alia?
I find the uncovering of this scandal almost delightful, revealing the UN for the corrupt band of 3rd world thugs that it mostly is.
(This is the typical Leftist m.o.: "Disappear" the evidence and the crimes never happened, right?)
While I feel true pity for the people of Iraq who truly suffered under Saddam (and the sanctions), it wasn't the United States that is to blame--unless the consensus is that the US should have police power over the UN--but once again, Saddam and the UN, who cared not one whit for anyone but themselves.
I hope that the world community, and in particular the Civilized West, keeps this scandal in the forefront of their minds if they're thinking of levying a similar sanctions program on North Korea and/or Iran.
Nothing short of democratic régime change will serve to bring down a crazy, despotic and nuke-proliferating dictatorship.

April 29, 2004

Sinclair to Preempt `Nightline' on ABC Stations, Cites Politics

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. ordered its ABC affiliates to preempt tomorrow's broadcast of "Nightline,'' which will air the names and photos of U.S. military personnel who have died in combat in Iraq, saying the move is politically motivated.

"Despite the denials by a spokeswoman for the show, the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq,'' the company said in a faxed statement. Sinclair, which owns 62 U.S. television stations, said ABC is disguising political statements as news content.

Nightline anchor Ted Koppel will read the names of the more than 500 members of the U.S. armed forces killed in Iraq as their photos air in pairs, the network has said. Their names, ranks, branches of service, hometowns and ages will be listed under the photos. The entire broadcast will be devoted to reading the names.

The 30-minute program airs at 11:35 p.m. New York time on ABC, a unit of the Walt Disney Co. It will include those certified as killed in action by the Pentagon between March 19, 2003, and the date of the broadcast. Because of the list's size, Nightline will only be able to devote seconds to each casualty, executive producer Leroy Sievers said Tuesday.

Sinclair owns stations affiliated with ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, WB and UPN in 39 markets.

In an e-mailed statement, ABC said the broadcast "is an expression of respect which simply seeks to honor those who have laid down their lives for this country.''

The Sinclair company is absolutely right!
This was designed to be a hit piece on President Bush and "his" War on Terror, nothing more, nothing less.
It was timed to air on the 1st "anniversary" of President Bush's landing on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lincoln so that the Left could mock him again about that and the "Mission Accomplished" banner that was displayed behind the President when he spoke there.
(The "Mission Accomplished" was for the crew of the Lincoln, who had been deployed overseas for over a year, and to signal that major combat action to topple Saddam, was accomplished, too; it was not to say, as the Left would have it, that our work in Iraq was over.)
In that ABC has never devoted airtime to reading the names of the soldiers the US has lost in any other wars or even to the names of the 3,000 civilian citizens we lost on 9/11, it is beyond doubt that they planned this special Nightline as just another partisan attack on the President and the policies of his Administration.
BRAVO to Sinclair for doing what they did and stating the truth publicly about the political aims of a major Liberal media organ like ABC.
What we've all been saying amongst ourselves privately for years about "Liberal media bias" has now been stated openly and in the media itself.
'Bout time!
And kudos again to Sinclair for putting their foot down and refusing to be a part of it!
The times (and the political climate in this country), they are a-changin'.
Here's Sinclair's own statement which is even more clear as to their reasons for the show's preemption:

ABC Nightline Pre-emption

The ABC Television Network announced on Tuesday that the Friday, April 30 edition of "Nightline" will consist entirely of Ted Koppel reading aloud the names of U.S. servicemen and women killed in action in Iraq. Despite the denials by a spokeswoman for the show, the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq.

There is no organization that holds the members of our military and those soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in service of our country in higher regard than Sinclair Broadcast Group. While Sinclair would support an honest effort to honor the memory of these brave soldiers, we do not believe that is what "Nightline" is doing. Rather, Mr. Koppel and "Nightline" are hiding behind this so-called tribute in an effort to highlight only one aspect of the war effort and in doing so to influence public opinion against the military action in Iraq. Based on published reports, we are aware of the spouse of one soldier who died in Iraq who opposes the reading of her husband's name to oppose our military action. We suspect she is not alone in this viewpoint. As a result, we have decided to preempt the broadcast of "Nightline' this Friday on each of our stations which air ABC programming.

We understand that our decision in this matter may be questioned by some. Before you judge our decision, however, we would ask that you first question Mr. Koppel as to why he chose to read the names of 523 troops killed in combat in Iraq, rather than the names of the thousands of private citizens killed in terrorist attacks since and including the events of September 11, 2001. In his answer, we believe you will find the real motivation behind his action scheduled for this Friday. Unfortunately, we may never know for sure because Mr. Koppel has refused repeated requests from Sinclair's News Central news organization to comment on this Friday's program.

May God rest the souls of those American troops who have lost their lives in Operation Iraqi Freedom as well as those who've made the ultimate sacrifice in the larger War on Terror.
And may the Lord continue to guide and comfort their bereaved families and love ones of those who have fallen.
And I'd like to add a special invocation of blessing for Sinclair Broadcasting--a great American organization!

Chirac: Turkey Entry Into EU Not Desired

French President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that Turkey's entry into the European Union, which is set to expand to 25 members this week, is not "desirable" now but could be in the future.
[Always leave them with a French tease, eh?--J.T.]

Chirac, speaking at his first full-fledged news conference in six years,
[And the press here criticizes President Bush for not giving more press conferences! Sheesh!--Jen] said Turkey had not yet met the conditions for entry into the EU. He pointed to concern about issues ranging from human rights to judicial reform.
[...]
Chirac's comments came weeks after Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told parliament that France would oppose Turkey's entry into the EU now because it had not met the criteria for entry.

Whatta surprise.
And for this (mostly) Turkey refused to let our troops go through their country to effect Operation Iraqi Freedom, turned down hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. aid which we threw in to sweeten the deal, helped bring about the nasty Baathist guerrilla situation we're facing in Falluja today (which would have been taken care of last March if our troops had come into Iraq from the north) and put their decades-long good relationship with the United States in the toilet (well, certainly near the outhouse!).
I tried to tell them in my blog, as did others in the "legitimate" press, that this wasn't going to get them invited into Jacques's club, but they wouldn't listen.
Hope sprang eternal last spring for the nation that tries to straddle both Europe and the Middle East and doesn't seem to do too well at belonging to either place.
(Does anyone else get the feeling that old Jacques really enjoys telling folks they're "not wanted?")

April 28, 2004

PM: "Much harsher" response to violence after pullout

Israel's response to Palestinian violence after a pullout from the Gaza Strip would be even harsher than its present military operations, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Tuesday.

Interviewed on Channel 10 TV for Independence Day, Sharon defended his unilateral disengagement plan, including a pullout from the Gaza Strip. Members of his Likud Party vote on the plan in a referendum on Sunday.

After a pullout, Palestinians could no longer explain violence by saying that Israel was occupying their land, Sharon said, "and Israel's responses (to violence) would be much harsher."
[...]
In the TV interview, Sharon warned Likud skeptics that voting down the plan would also negate US guarantees that Israel could keep parts of the West Bank and deny entry to Palestinian refugees.

Palestinians suspect Sharon's real intention is to trade Gaza for a permanent hold over large areas of the West Bank.
[Don't look now, Paleos, but Israel won that land fair and square in war against you in 1967 and 1973!--Jen]

In the West Bank city of Nablus, about 1,500 backers of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine demonstrated against the change in US policy.

"Bush does not own a house in Jaffa or Acre for him to give away to the Israelis," one PFLP member shouted, and actors played out a scene in which masked gunmen kidnapped an American soldier and killed him.

Charming little "play," huh?
Yep, once the security fence is completely built and the Israelis pull out of Gaza, it will be very clear who the bad guys are and why they do what they do.
IOW, the whole world will see that the Islamists are using terrorist murder to try and kill every Jew in Israel and to wipe Israel off the map, not to get an independent country that lives "side-by-side" peacefully with Israel.
The going will be tough in the days, weeks and months ahead, but the Israelis (with America's help under President Bush) have finally extricated themselves from the "peace process/cycle of violence/land for peace" quagmire they've been in since they signed the Camp David accords in 1979.
(Actually, their problems with the radical Muslims go back much, much further than that...which reminds me: Happy 56th Birthday to the nation of Israel!)

Spitz raises Olympic fear

Olympic legend Mark Spitz believes security concerns may see the United States withdraw from the Athens Games.

Spitz, who won seven swimming golds in 1972, says heightened terrorist fears may prompt drastic action from the US.

"I would say that about six months ago it was highly unlikely," Spitz told BBC Five Live.

"But each day it becomes more probable than not that ongoing conversations will take place as to how important it is to put athletes in harm's way."
[...]

But Spitz believes that any US decision to pull out of the Games will come at a late stage, and could trigger a "snowball effect" as other countries follow suit.

"We are looking under the microscope at all the different terrorist acts and we know there is a high degree of probability that something could happen in Athens," he said.

Mark Spitz knows whereof he speaks: he was sent home when the Israeli wrestling team was taken hostage by the "Palestinian" terrorists during the '72 Munich Games both because he was such a star and because he was Jewish.
I'll never forget watching this on Live TV when I was in high school and feeling in the pit of my stomach how horrible the "Black September Massacre" was; little did we all know that that was the real beginning of IslamoFascist terrorism.

I've felt uneasy about the Games when the subject came up, but after the Madrid bombings and what happened in Spain thereafter, I knew that Athens would be a nightmare!
Greece has asked NATO to provide security, but how good could that be, with most of the good fighters already busy fighting the war in Iraq or Afghanistan?
This is a World War and not the time to do things we'd do in peacetime like the Olympics especially in a foreign venue and one that is not all that friendly to America right now.
Besides, the Greeks have taken out insurance in case the Games are cancelled in full or in part because of "war, terrorism, earthquake, etc." and worse still, they can't get the roof on the main stadium.
In addition to that, many of the other Olympic venues aren't finished.
Can you believe that the ancestors of these same people built the Parthenon in 447 B.C... without modern tools and modern labor unions?
Trying to hold the Olympics, given the current world political climate with the ongoing WOT, would be enough of a problem anyway, but given the logistical and security problems that seem aggravated by Greek lethargy and inaction make it a "no-go."
Let's tell Team USA to stay home!

Scores killed in Thai gun battles

Security forces have killed at least 100 suspected Islamic militants in a spate of gun battles in south Thailand.

At least 30 died in a raid on a mosque where they were taking refuge from clashes with the army, officials said.

Others died during scuffles near police bases, which the attackers stormed in a series of co-ordinated attacks.

Thailand's prime minister has blamed local gangs, but many officials fear international militant groups may be behind the attacks.

The BBC correspondent in Bangkok, Kylie Morris, says the fighting is a serious escalation of the violence that began in early January with a raid on a military arsenal.

In the intervening months, more than 100 people have been killed in almost daily small-scale attacks.

Wednesday's violence took place in the three Muslim-dominated provinces of Thailand - Yala, Pattani and Songkhla.
[...]
Prime Minister Thaksin said the toll among security forces was low because the attackers had been armed only with machetes and a few guns.

But he said the fact many were riding brand-new motorcycles suggested they were receiving financial support from influential figures in the area.

"Local politicians are involved," he said, adding that the attacks were due to "organised crime mixed with politics".
[...]
Some analysts have voiced concerns that the attackers could have links to more established international militant groups.

One of the men killed in Wednesday's violence was found to be wearing a shirt with JI emblazoned on the back - a possible reference to Jemaah Islamiah, the group blamed for terrorist attacks across South East Asia, including the Bali bombings.

The alienation felt by Thailand's Muslim minority has been the source of a decades-old separatist struggle, which decreased in intensity after an amnesty in the late 1980s but resurfaced again earlier this year.

Thailand is predominantly Buddhist, with its 4% Muslim population concentrated in the troubled southern provinces - Pattani, Yala, Songkhla and Narathiwat.

I must not read as much as I thought, because I didn't know there were any Muslims in Thailand until a few months ago!
Now, I'm told that they make up 4% of the population there and almost 100% of the trouble.
It's clear that the Islamists have been busy, busy busy with all those Saudi petromillions funding the jihad through the placement of mosques, radical clerics and madrassas.
The West has a lot of work to do, but we won't get to Thailand for a long while, so they're on their own for the time being.
Isn't is sad, though, that the murder and destruction look and sound the same whether it be Iraq, Thailand or the "Palestinian" Intifada?

Police raided a militant hide-out hours after a mysterious attack in the Syrian capital's diplomatic quarter that killed four people and may have targeted a building once occupied by the United Nations.

Police found weapons including rocket propelled grenades and guns during the raid in the nearby town of Khan al-Sheih, the state-controlled SANA news agency said. Khan al-Sheih is about 18 miles southwest of the scene of Tuesday's clash and has a Palestinian refugee camp nearby.

The violence Tuesday was some of the worst in tightly controlled Syria since the 1980s, when the government put down an insurgency by Islamic militants. On Wednesday, residents swept away glass that was shattered by a bomb and small weapons fire during the attack.

Quoting a security source, the state-run SANA news agency called the attackers "a terrorist band," but government and witness accounts of Tuesday's battle shed little light on any possible motives.

An Interior Ministry official told SANA that four gunmen detonated a bomb placed under a car before firing bullets and grenades at Syrian security forces.

The government said two attackers, a policeman and a civilian were killed.

The target appeared to be a former United Nations office whose facade was blackened and scarred Wednesday, but witnesses said the gunmen appeared to have fired at random.
[...]
Across the street, evidence of the battle scarred the four-story building that once housed the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force, which monitors an agreement between Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights.
[Betcha the Israelis can tell us all about how these UN blue helmets have kept the Syrians in line!
And this agreement was part of the deal to get Arafat and the "Palestinians" out of Lebanon and into Israel and you know the rest of that story.--Jen]
[...]
All U.N. offices were closed in Damascus Wednesday, as was the U.S. Embassy, which is not in the neighborhood that saw Tuesday's violence.

Muslim extremists have portrayed the United Nations as a tool of the West,
[Looks as if nobody loves the U.N.! Whatta shame. Not.--J.T.
blaming the world body, for example, for the crippling international sanctions imposed on Iraq to punish Saddam Hussein for invading Kuwait in 1990.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Syria's hard-line government fought a fierce war with Islamic fundamentalists of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was blamed for a 1980 assassination attempt on President Hafez Assad, the country's authoritarian leader who died from natural causes in 2000. Assad was succeeded by his son, Bashar Assad.
[Blaming the Islamic Brotherhood for trying to kill Pop Assad wasn't so strange--I think they offed Anwar Sadat in Egypt in 1981.--Jen]

In 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood staged a rebellion in the northern province of Hama. During the clashes, Syrian forces razed much of the city, killing as many as 10,000 people and finally crushing the Brotherhood after a five-year war.

Syria has been on the U.S. State Department's list of terror-sponsoring nations for its support of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah that attack Israel. Syria, though, says the anti-Israeli groups are not terrorist, and that it has an interest in fighting Islamic extremist groups like al-Qaida.

The GWOIT gets odder by the day...
It will be interesting to see which group did do this.
Baby Assad is clearly friendly to terror groups; they just have to be his terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.
Surely, he's also sponsoring lots of Saddam's old Sunni Baathist buddies, too.
So, why would Al Queda target Damascus?
I heard Monsoor Ijaz talk about this on Fox News and he came up with 2 possible suspects for the blast: in his expert opinion, he said it could be either fellow Syrians who were trying to overthrow Assad's rule or Kurdish fighters who've been picking other fights with Syria before.
Even though we've all gotten used to a world since 9/11 where we almost automatically blame AQ, I'm thinking that Monsoor is right and that this time, it's not AQ but either one (or a combination thereof) of the groups he mentioned.
Of course, they could always owe allegiance to and have funding and support from Al Queda, the Mother of all terror groups...
We shall see (that is, if we can get any real news out of a hermetically sealed place like Damascus).

U.S. Warplanes Hit Insurgents in Fallujah

U.S. warplanes and artillery attacked Sunni insurgents holed up in a slum in a thunderous show of force that rocked Fallujah Tuesday, sending huge plumes of black smoke into the night sky. The assault came after American troops killed 64 gunmen near the southern city of Najaf.

An American soldier was killed Tuesday in Baghdad, raising the U.S. death toll for April to 115 - the same number lost during the invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein last year. Up to 1,200 Iraqis also have been killed this month.

The second straight night of battles in Fallujah came as the extension of a fragile cease-fire ended in the turbulent city west of Baghdad. Marines have been preparing to begin patrols in the city later this week.

Tuesday's battle appeared far heavier than the previous night's clashes, in which a Marine and eight insurgents were killed - suggesting U.S. forces were trying to wear down gunmen in the Jolan neighborhood, a district of narrow alleyways and ramshackle houses.

An AC-130, a powerful gunship that can unleash a deluge of ordnance, joined 105mm howitzers in opening up on insurgent targets in the neighborhood. Gunfire and explosions reverberated for nearly two hours, and an eerie orange glow shone over the area while showers of sparks descended like fireworks.

Fires were visible in the Jolan neighborhood, and mosque loudspeakers elsewhere in the city called for firefighters. U.S. aircraft dropped white leaflets over Fallujah before nightfall, calling on insurgents to give up.

"Surrender, you are surrounded," the leaflets said. "If you are a terrorist, beware, because your last day was yesterday. In order to spare your life end your actions and surrender to coalition forces now. We are coming to arrest you."

Fighting also broke out in Baghdad and in the south, where U.S. forces are in a standoff with militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is wanted on murder charges for allegedly killing a fellow cleric.
[...]
Joint patrols by Marines and Iraqis are a key part of the political effort, aiming to restore a semblance of control in Fallujah. Marines began training Iraqi security forces on Tuesday for the patrols, practicing in an industrial zone on the southern side of the city held by U.S. forces.

South of Baghdad, U.S. troops battled militiamen loyal [to] al-Sadr on the east side of the Euphrates River, outside the cities of Najaf and Kufa.

The first fight came in the afternoon, when Shiite militiamen fired on a U.S. patrol. In the ensuing firefight, < u>seven insurgents were killed. Hours later, an M1 tank was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades. A heavy battle erupted, during which warplanes destroyed an anti-aircraft gun belonging to the militia and 57 gunmen were killed, Kimmitt said.

Najaf hospitals listed 37 dead, all young men of fighting age, suggesting they may have been militiamen. Al-Sadr aides said civilians also died, but could not say how many.
[Uh-huh. Isn't this special?--Jen]

U.S. forces killed 64 Iraqis on Monday and Tuesday in battles with militiamen outside the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said.

The fighting came as U.S. troops are trying to hike up the pressure on al-Sadr. A force of 200 U.S. troops moved into a base in Najaf to replace Spanish troops.
[Those bastards!
I will never forgive the Spanish for pulling out in the middle of the Coalition's biggest fight since we began the War on Terror!--Jen]
The Americans have said they will avoid the Shiite holy shrines about three miles away in the heart of Najaf.

Fewer al-Sadr fighters were seen Tuesday on the streets of Najaf and nearby Kufa, where they have been digging in over the past week against a possible American attack.

So went the war last night.
Our guys are getting the upper hand but it cost us a few soldiers' lives, I'm sorry to say.
God rest them.
But the good news is that we ended the jihad permanently for a lot more of the enemy!
The next 2 months until the June 30 handover may be the longest of our lives, but get through them we will and victoriously, as well.
Good going to all the Coalition troops!
The insurgents are already starting to buckle, because lookie here, their tribal leaders are going to try and talk the IslamoNazis into giving up:
Sheikhs traveling to Fallujah

April 26, 2004

New Battle in Falluja Casts Doubt on Peace Deal

Falluja
U.S. Marines skirmished with Iraqi guerrillas in the besieged town of Falluja on Monday, reinforcing local skepticism about a deal to end three weeks of bloodshed that is due to put American troops on the streets.

The agreement struck on Sunday between U.S. officials and negotiators from the Sunni Muslim city aims to put joint patrols of Marines and Iraqi police into Falluja on Tuesday.

But the insurgents, by U.S. estimates up to 2,000 of them, are showing no signs of complying with an earlier deal to give up heavy weapons and residents said they were not optimistic.

"The joint patrols will have to be conducted peacefully and without provoking residents with things like house searches," said Mohammad Ali. "I doubt very much that they will succeed."

Local witnesses said Monday's battle, in which guerrillas fired rocket-propelled grenades and Marines opened up with heavy machineguns mounted on vehicles, was triggered when U.S. forces probed into northern districts of the town late in the morning.

An hour into the fighting, U.S. helicopters attacked.
[Woohoo!]

Even before the latest clash, local people had little faith that Sunday's deal would do more than extend a scarcely observed cease-fire and would expose the patrols to the guns of the fighters, who, the Americans say, may include 200 foreigners.
[Betcha this figure proves to be very low.--Jen]

"I expect the U.S. and Iraqi forces to be exposed targets for the resistance. No one can control the feelings of the sons of Falluja because they are very angry," said Abdul Hakim Shaker, another resident of the city of 300,000 west of Baghdad.

"They will refuse to put up with American tanks and armored vehicles on their streets," he said in a city where doctors say 600 people were killed in a crackdown this month following the murder and mutilation of four U.S. contractors.

Baghdad
In central Baghdad, an explosion ripped through a chemical storehouse, setting four U.S. military vehicles ablaze and inflicting American and Iraqi casualties, witnesses said.
[The AP report says that the enemy levelled a "weapons repair shop."]

One witness said the blast happened after 12 U.S. soldiers parked their Humvees outside and surrounded the building.

"When they tried to force their way in, there was a huge ball of fire and I was thrown to the ground," Imad Hashim, who said he was about 100 yards away, told Reuters.

The blast was heard in many areas of the capital and a large cloud of black smoke billowed over the area.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military.

Falluja is one of two delicate problems facing the U.S.-led coalition, a Sunni town in a country where 60 percent are Shi'ite Muslims and deep in the heartland of support for toppled leader Saddam Hussein, himself a Sunni.

The other is in the holy Shi'ite cities of Najaf -- where anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is holed up with his militia and where U.S. spokesmen say a "potentially explosive" situation is brewing -- and Kerbala further south.

The convoy of Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov came under fire late on Sunday as he made a surprise visit to Bulgarian troops in Kerbala, Defense Ministry spokeswoman Rumiana Strugarova said. No one was hurt and Parvanov returned home early on Monday, she said in Sofia.

There was better news for Iraq's rulers when oil exports resumed from the main terminal off the southern city of Basra, 27 hours after suicide boat attacks forced operations to halt.
[Terrific news! This was supposedly going to cost $28 million a day in downtime!]

"Iraqi teams restored operations at 1700 GMT on Sunday. The damage was limited and exports are flowing back at the same rates," Oil Minister Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum told Reuters.

The terminal accounts for around 85 percent of Iraq's 1.9 million barrels per day of exports and a successful attack would have caused a major disaster.

Najaf
But tension rose again in Najaf, home of the holiest Shi'ite shrines and effectively controlled by Sadr and his Mehdi Army
[Lest you forget: This is Al-Reuters doing the reporting!]
with U.S. troops poised outside charged with killing or capturing him.

Actually, according to this AP Report, 200 U.S. troops have actually moved into Najaf to replace the withdrawing Spanish Brigade:

But the move deploys U.S. troops within the Najaf urban area for the first time since they first moved against the Al-Mahdi Army militia of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

About 200 troops and Military Police rolled into the base Monday morning. The base is about three miles from Shiite shrines at the heart of Najaf.

Spanish troops are preparing to leave, and U.S. troops moved in to prevent the site from falling into the militia's hands.

Overnight, al-Sadr's forces shelled the base with 21 mortars, wounding at least one Salvadoran soldier, said Col. Paul White, commander of the U.S. 2nd Battalion, 37th Armored Regiment, which moved into the city.

All that shelling with mortar fire sounds like a real battle to me and reason enough to enter into the city, "holy" or not!
But back to the Al-Reuters account:

"Weapons and explosives are being hidden in schools, mosques and holy sites" in the city, U.S. Governor Paul Bremer told Arabic television station Al Jazeera on Sunday.
[Yea Jerry Bremer! Speaking truth to power about the Religion of Peace™ on Al-Jizz, no less!]

Bremer, whose spokesman termed the situation "potentially explosive," said Sadr's militia in Najaf and Kerbala made the situation "very difficult because these two cities are holy."

Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said any U.S. move into the city -- which would inflame Shi'ites -- was not imminent: "There are no time lines in the near term" for such action, he said.

Some military experts say the U.S.-led forces are becoming stretched with Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic due to withdraw troops
[Yellow-bellied cowards, all!]
from Iraq and others looking at pulling out after a planned U.S. handover of power to Iraqis on June 30.

El Salvador President Francisco Flores said he had yet to decide whether to keep 380 troops in Iraq after June 30.

Other allies, however, may send more troops. Britain said on Monday it was talking to its coalition partners about how to cope with the withdrawal of Spanish troops, a move that may lead to an expansion of the British contingent, the second biggest.

Formerly Soviet Georgia, which is keen to strengthen warm ties with Washington, said it would nearly quadruple its contingent from 150 men to a full battalion of about 550.

Thank you, Great Britain and Georgia!
We know the British are the best, but maybe the Georgians know only too well that someday soon we may be coming to their country to clean the IslamoNazis out of the Pankisi Gorge (Al Queda's home-away-from-home to wage jihad in Chechnya)...and they remember Communist domination vividly, also.
As for the bad guys in Iraq, it sounds from these incidents that they're just waiting for our soldiers to show up in Najaf, Baghdad and Falluja.
Stay cool, calm and collected, guys and gals!
Happy hunting, but watch your back and come home soon safe, sound and VICTORIOUS.

April 25, 2004

Blair 'faces Europe rebellion'

Tony Blair is facing a rebellion within his own party over plans for a new EU constitution, a former minister has warned.

Up to 50 MPs[That's Members of Parliament to we Yanks.--Jen] would revolt against the proposals, according to ex-sports minister Kate Hoey.

She told GMTV's Sunday Programme: "I think there will be a number of Labour members of Parliament who will vote against the constitution."

Mr Blair said on Tuesday a referendum would be held on the constitution.

Thanks be to God!
Tony had been quite obstinate about not having a referendum up until last week.
But Britain simply must vote on this and vote "No."
As the UK is the strongest country in Europe, the EU cannot be the new EUro Socialist Super State the Weasel Axis wants it to be without Britain's economic, military and moral strength!
I'm so glad that a good group of Brits got together, made their "No!" voices be heard and stopped this madness that Spain's evil new PM Zapatero had revived with his willingness to sign the new EU conprostitution.

Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock said he believed Mr Blair may "hang up his boots" after a referendum.

He told the BBC's Politics Show that it would be "understandable" if he chose to step down after the vote.

After the "immensely trying period" he had gone through it would be "human" to want to quit, he said.

But there were no guarantees this would happen given Mr Blair's feeling that it was his duty to lead the country, Mr Kinnock added.

Another ex-sports minister, Tony Banks, told GMTV's Sunday Programme that he was against the idea of a referendum but national newspapers had "made it very difficult" for the Prime Minister to say there would not be one.
[Banks is probably referring to very popular The Sun here whose EU Constitution poll made news itself. I love The Sun!]
[...]
An ICM survey, commissioned by the New Frontiers Foundation, showed that only 21% would back the proposed EU treaty in a vote.

Commenting on the poll, shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram said: "Britain's interests are best served by saying yes to Europe but no to handing over more control to the EU, which is what this constitution would mean.

"This poll shows that the British people understand this and they will not be fooled by a government that tries to twist the debate and scare them into thinking that they would be forced to leave the EU if they voted no."
[These ICM survey results say it all about why Tony was forced to change his mind!
Such is the price of leading a supposed democracy.--J.T.]

However, EU external relations commissioner Chris Patten - a former Conservative Party chairman [Who'd I say has gone completely over to the Dark Side since!--Jen]- suggested that a "No" vote would make Britain's position within the EU all but untenable.

Interviewed by The Observer, Mr Patten said: "We've got to make our mind up whether we want to make a success of Europe or not."

Not, Chris.
Not if it's at the expense of Britain's economy, culture, military, history and tradition and to the benefit of only the French and Germans.

[I had to use the BBC's version of this story. Isn't it ironic that after all their machinations to bring down and oppose Blair--most particularly their backing of reporter Andrew Gilligan and his "sexed up" story that Blair and his Cabinet had lied about Saddam's WMDs--that it would be the Sun and the issue of the EU Constitution that might make their dreams come true?]

Greek Cypriots dash "confederation plan" [Sneer quotes mine.--Jen]

In a major blow to international hopes, Greek Cypriots yesterday in a referendum massively rejected a U.N. plan to unite the island torn by more than three decades of ethnic division.
    
In a separate referendum that widened the rift that has plagued Cyprus virtually since the end of British colonial rule in 1960, Turkish Cypriots accepted the blueprint for a confederation of two "constituent states" on the strategic Mediterranean island.
[Ever get the feeling that the United States just goes around cleaning up messes that Britain left, like Iraq, "Palestine," Kashmir and now Cyprus?--J.T.]
    
According to returns released last night, some 75.9 percent of Greek-Cypriot voters rejected the plan, which bore the personal stamp of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan[Kofi Annan: Mr. World Headache!], while just less than 65 percent of Turkish Cypriots approved it.
    
The vote of the Turkish minority will have no impact on the immediate future of Cyprus, which will remain divided. Only the Greek-Cypriot part will enter the European Union, as scheduled, on May 1, leaving the Turkish Cypriots in an isolated rump state recognized only by Turkey.

This is as it should be.
Turkey shouldn't be rewarded for its armed land grab, initially staged in 1974 with 40,000 Turkish troops that are still there.

The Turkish Cypriots did not participate in negotiations with the European Union, but many of them saw the unification plan as a path to membership.
    
European Union officials did not hide their disappointment at a result that greatly complicates the enlargement process next month.
    
"The political damage is large," EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen said. "There's now a shadow over Cyprus' membership."
[Not to mention Turkey's!...which Mr. Verheugen didn't, as it happens.]
   
 State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States was also "disappointed" at the Greek-Cypriot vote.
    
"Failure of the referendum in the Greek-Cypriot community is a setback to the hopes of those on the island who voted for the settlement and to the international community," he said.
[IOW, we're just tired of the Greeks and Turks fighting over this and wish it would be over any old way.]
    
The Greek-Cypriot vote is certain to tarnish the community's entry into the European Union and damage relations with the international community. The United States, the European Union and a number of regional powers saw the U.N. plan as a chance to end a long-festering feud in a strategic and vulnerable area.

But the estimated 200 specialists who drafted the 9,000-page U.N. plan were criticized for using facile formulas without considering the tensions, passions and history of the island. The plan is theoretically based on the system of the Swiss confederation that many considered not applicable in Mediterranean conditions.
    
According to Greek-Cypriot commentator George Lordos, who backed the Annan blueprint, "We will now lose all our friends in Europe.
    
"We embark on a course of future collision with Greece herself," he added, and the Cyprus problem "will never again be raised in her path to Europe."
    
The vote confirmed the opposing hopes and aspirations of the island's two ethnic communities, the Orthodox Christian Greek Cypriots and Muslim Turkish Cypriots.
[And the jihadi Muslims raise their heads in yet another place where they're trying to lay claim to land that isn't theirs and drive out the Christians. Shades of Kosovo and Kashmir and "Palestine" and Chechnya...]

 In the words of Turkish-Cypriot President Rauf Denktash -- the longtime Turkish leader who urged rejection of the U.N. plan -- the vote proved that "there is no Cypriot nation, just Greeks and Turks living in Cyprus."
    
In Turkey itself, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Greek community in Cyprus would be the big loser in the vote.
[Uh-huh. Doesn't Erdogan wish! Making lemonade out of lemons.--Jen]
[...]
 Turkish officials made clear they would push for the end of the international isolation of the Turkish north of the island, the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), saying there was no longer any reason for "an unfavorable attitude towards the Turkish community."
    
The Greek-Cypriot vote strengthened the position of their president, Tassos Papadopoulos, who had campaigned for a rejection. He claimed the plan, despite Mr. Annan's imprimatur, was full of pitfalls and relied too heavily on Turkish goodwill.
[Hmmm. Sounds to me as if it relied on Greek Cypriot goodwill.--Jen]

Memories of communal strife that date back to 1963 weighed heavily over the Greek-Cypriot vote. Many objected to what they saw as limited Turkish territorial concessions and the cost of the vague unification plan that was to be borne mainly by the richer Greek-Cypriot sector.
    
In fact, many Greek Cypriots and foreign observers saw many clauses of the "Annan Plan" as containing the potential for new instability on the island, which has been relatively calm -- though politically frozen -- since the 1974 Turkish invasion after an abortive coup to link the island with Greece.
    
Many on the Greek side believed that their prosperity and economic development since the 1974 Turkish invasion would be diluted by the new demands to support the Turkish sector, which would be allowed to retain its separate political identity.

Maybe I'm making a big deal of nothing and Cyprus is a tiny island, but I think this mini-battle is another battlefront in the Global War on Islamist Terrorism.
And if nothing else, it should make for an interesting Olympics this summer.
Of course, Greece and Turkey have been fighting over some piece of land or the other for thousands of years and they will continue to do so.
The "Annan plan" wouldn't have put an end to that, but only officially rewarded Turkey for its armed invasion of the island in 1974.
Turks and Muslim Turks are in a definite minority in Cyprus and shouldn't be given half of it for any reason.
(And lurking in the background is Turkey's "cooperation" with the "international community," which was another bid for favors from the EUro-weenies when it came to EU membership, when it refused to allow US troops on their soil as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.)
Funny how I blogged about this problem over a year ago, when Mr. Papadopoulos had just won the election as Greek Cypriot President on the platform of "President of all Cypriots" and Denktash had stood up the UN for talks on Cypriot unification because of that.
Yet every story I read on the referenda this weekend had no mention of how horribly Denktash and the Turks had behaved in the past when talks were proposed or tried.
Clearly, this is another EU/UN problem that they're trying to solve quickly in the favor of the bullying Muslim country to the detriment of the more craven, but cowed Western one.
The Greeks are no angels, but I truly think that their Cypriot "cousins" have been wronged politically, economically and religiously speaking by the Turkish Cypriot
invasion and--Dare I say it? I do dare.-- "occupation."
And the wily Turks, led by the overtly Muslim Erdogan, have managed to get the stamp of legitimacy from both the U.N. and the E.U., even though the U.N. has condemned the Turkish occupation more than once:

... UN resolutions stipulate that Cyprus is a single country in which the northern third is illegally occupied. In 1982, Turkish-controlled Cyprus made a unilateral declaration of independence that was condemned by the United Nations and that remains unrecognized by every country except Turkey.

So, Kofi Annan (What a tool!) went against the long-standing resolutions of his own "fine" institution to try and make this happen on his watch. Typical.
What better proof do we need that U.N. Resolutions are worthless?
He'll do anything for money, power and celebrity and the full impact of his participation in the Iraq Oil-for-Palaces scandal hasn't hit yet, although I think it will soon, as they're implicating Kofi's son:

Benon Sevan, who ran the Oil-for-Food program, and reported to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, is among those believed to have profited from illegal oil sales. Mr. Sevan has denied any wrongdoing. There also have been questions about a possible conflict of interest involving Kojo Annan and Cotecna, a Swiss firm that employed the secretary-general's son and was contracted by the U.N. to work on behalf of the Oil-for-Food program. Kojo Annan has denied any conflict.

And while Turkey's Erdogan was seemingly chastened in his jihad by the Al Queda-linked bombings in Istanbul last November, those bitter memories of the downside of Islamofascism seem to be fading or he would tell Denktash and the Turkish troops on Cyprus to come home.

We haven't heard the end of this, not only because of the Athens Olympics, but also because Cyprus is so strategically located in the Mediterranean... and then there are its ties to Great Britain (not the least of which is the fact that Prince Phillip was born on Cyprus!).
All the U.N. unification talks and then this referendum did was to legimitimize the Turkish occupation of the northern end of Cyprus and by their vote, the Greek Cypriots refused to do the same.
Good for them!

CEASEFIRE IN FALLUJAH

An "indefinite" ceasefire has reportedly been secured in the besieged city of Fallujah.

A mediator told the AFP news agency
[Gotta watch AFP like a hawk; they lean Left!--Jen]
a deal had been struck by the US-led Coalition and city leaders.

The deal would involve a ban being enforced on carrying arms.
[Uh, what about shooting off said arms???--J.T.]

Hashim al Hassani of the Iraq Islamic Party said: "We have reached a new deal that extended the ceasefire indefinitely and secured an agreement on several new points."

He said the deal includes a ban on carrying weapons as of Tuesday and the start of joint patrols in the city.

These would involve Iraqi police and Civil Defence Corps forces and coalition troops in the city on the same day.

Weeks of fierce fighting in the city have left hundreds dead and wounded.

And these dead and wounded are mostly men of military age and *not* "women, children and the elderly" as the Lying Liberal Left media would have it!
But as all of our military commanders in Iraq and Bush Administration officials keep saying, the Falluja "insurgents" won't have the option of the hudna or ceasefire forever, particularly if they keep shooting at our Marines and/or refuse to give themselves up.
President Bush is using his weekend "off" to make conference calls and hold roundtable discussions with his War Cabinet at Camp David to discuss the ultimate disposition of Falluja:
Bush's Decision on Possible Attack on Falluja Seems Near

Facing one of the grimmest choices of the Iraq war, President Bush and his senior national security and military advisers are expected to decide this weekend whether to order an invasion of Falluja, even if a battle there runs the risk of uprisings in the city and perhaps elsewhere around Iraq.

After declaring on Friday evening in Florida that "America will never be run out of Iraq by a bunch of thugs and killers," Mr. Bush flew to Camp David for the weekend, where administration officials said he planned consultations in a videoconference with the military commanders who are keeping the city under siege.
[...]
As Mr. Bush discusses strategy for Falluja, administration and senior military officials portray his choices as dismal.

"It's clear you can't leave a few thousand insurgents there to terrorize the city and shoot at us," one senior official involved in the discussions
[Of course, we all have to be hypervigilant when reading the NYTimes due to their record of poor truth-telling, but when they say "one senior official," meaning someone who won't go on the record, you really have to take what is said with more than a grain of salt!]
said in an interview on Saturday. "The question now is whether there is a way to go in with the most minimal casualties possible."
[I take it that here he means minimal casualties on both sides.]

No decision to begin military action has been made yet.

The chief of the American occupation authority, L. Paul Bremer III, visited Falluja on Saturday with Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq, to consult with frontline commanders. They appeared to be making a last-ditch effort for a negotiated settlement.

But in Washington, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has expressed strong doubts that the Falluja political and business figures the Americans are talking to hold any sway over the insurgents.

On Saturday, as a blinding sandstorm
[Ever since last year and the March Up to Baghdad, I hate these, but I bet our soldiers hate them even more.]
swept across a sprawling former Iraqi Army base near Falluja, Marine commanders were getting assignments for potential targets, studying maps and planning lines of attack for a battle that they expect could come in the next few days. The Marines have encircled the city, awaiting Mr. Bush's decision.

But the city, a sandy mix of wide boulevards and back alleys along the Euphrates River west of Baghdad, poses what military officials say is an immensely complicated and dangerous urban combat terrain.

While administration officials say they would like to carry out a precise attack on an estimated 2,000 hard-core Sunni Muslim insurgents
[...but there are Iranian Shiites in there, too, I'm sure.]
, military officials say there is no way guided missiles or pinpoint bombing can do this job.

Instead, the military is planning swift raids by Marine riflemen — backed by helicopters and gunships — aimed at the insurgents' leaders and their gunmen, while encouraging others in the city to evacuate or stay under cover.

For Mr. Bush, struggling through the most casualty-ridden month in Iraq since the war began 13 months ago, the kind of operation now being contemplated is hardly the sort of painful choice his administration anticipated nearly a year after he declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq and the defeat of Saddam Hussein's government.
[This is, of course, the NYTimes making stuff up and engaging in the obligatory bashing of President Bush and his Administration. We are at war and in war, there are casualties. While they may seem "high"--and of course, every soldier killed or seriously hurt is a net loss to us all--our casualties in Operation Iraq Freedom don't come close to those we've endured in other wars and still amount to about 1/4 of the civilians who were slaughtered on 9/11.]

The president and his advisers, said officials familiar with the deliberations, are keenly aware that if the operation to root out the insurgents kills many civilians — or simply appears to when reports are broadcast on Arab networks
[Ha! Just Arab networks?
The global Lying Liberal Left media will follow Al-Jazeera's lead!
And they'll portray it as "America bad." no matter what happens.]
— it could spark uprisings elsewhere around Iraq, from Baghdad even to some Shiite strongholds where tolerance of the American occupation has worn thin.
[Love the way the NYT skips back and forth across Iraq and between the Sunni and Shiite sects with n real distinctions!]

In Washington, officials still describe the fear of uprisings in Iraq as a theory, one they say may be overblown. But it clearly has Mr. Bush and his advisers deeply concerned. They have only 10 weeks to form an interim government, and it will be May, officials say, before the United Nations envoy charged to put together such a government, Lakhdar Brahimi, returns to Iraq.
[...]
It was this growing concern, officials say, that led Mr. Bremer, who is to leave Iraq in 10 weeks after handing sovereignty over to Iraqis, to warn on Friday that "Iraq faces a choice."

His message was that the country could miss its best chance to establish a democratic government, and he used a starkly grimmer tone than his usual upbeat message about life returning to normal.

Mr. Bush is described by many officials as convinced that if the insurgents hold off American forces there, they will try to do the same in other Iraqi cities.
[If this is indeed President Bush's line of thought, he may be right, but we also have to deal with the Shiite cleric al-Sadr and what remains of his "Mahdi Army" holed up in Najaf.]
[...]
Another person involved in the talks is the mayor of Falluja, Mahmoud Ibrahim. But it is unclear how much power he wields. Marine officers who have dealt with him say he is roundly disliked by many of the residents. He had been the mayor for several years under Saddam Hussein's rule. The political situation has been somewhat murky, with rival city councils named by American civilian and military officials, and it is unclear how Mr. Ibrahim remained mayor.

In any event, he told Marine officers earlier this week that he had no control over three sections of the city — Jolan, Hayal Askeri and Shuhada — which make up about half the city.

On the outskirts today, hundreds of people were still trying to get back to their homes despite the apparent threat of imminent attack, but soldiers and marines at the checkpoints turned them back and allowed no one in.

Hundreds of other people were fleeing the city. The rule was that only families were being allowed out. At several points, young, military-age men were seen grabbing protesting children by the hand to make their way out past the checkpoints.
[What horrible cowards! Of course, the Marines are pretty scary!]

The American military surrounding Falluja — and, indeed, all across Iraq — took quiet and nearly invisible steps to prepare for an attack that increasingly seemed inevitable to commanders.
[...]
Behind the scenes, senior American officials reached out to members of the Iraqi Governing Council, some of whom had publicly criticized the initial combat missions to pacify Falluja after violence flared two weeks ago. The goal of the talks, Pentagon and military officials said, was to guarantee the Iraqis' support for an offensive to quell the insurgency in Falluja should all other attempts to pacify the town fail.

A final information campaign also was being prepared, senior officials said. Just before an allied offensive into Falluja, messages would be broadcast into the town urging all noncombatants to leave the city and seek refuge in designated areas where food, water, medicine and shelter would be provided by the American military.

All we can do is to continue to watch and wait.
It would be nice if the IslamoNazis saw sense and reason and decided to surrender, but I doubt they will and our Marines will have to go into the streets and alleys of Falluja to fight and kill these "dead enders."
We were going to have to have a showdown with the enemy sooner or later and as the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam and his Republican Guard was so fast and easy, it should surprise noone that we'd be fighting this battle now.
My question is, "Where are the Kurds?"
They're just to the north of this area, are our staunchest supporters (and likewise, the biggest haters of Baathists) and are some of the best fighters, yet we've heard nothing about them for weeks.

Pray for the best; prepare for the worst.
That's what the Marines are doing.
And as the partisan press bemoaned our certain bloody military defeat in Iraq three weeks ago when this anniversary uprising started, as sure as God made little green apples, they'll carry on that American soldiers are "brutal baby killers" when we subdue the troublemakers in Falluja decisively, if it turns out that we have to attack the town to save it from the killers.
The journos are so predictable.
Right-thinking Americans and clear-headed Iraqis know the truth: our soldiers are good men and women who will do what must be done with minimal casualties and for the good of the most people.
In the case of Falluja, it will be a firm response to the Islamist guerrillas' assault on the democratic future of Iraq.

Unmanned US aircraft fired missile at Iraqi insurgents on April 11

An unmanned US aircraft fired a missile at Iraqi insurgents attempting to fire mortars at a US air base 10 days ago, killing or wounding several of them, the US Air Force disclosed Wednesday.

A Predator MQ-1 aircraft fired a Hellfire missile at those preparing to attack Balad Air Base on April 11, a day after a US airman was killed and two others wounded in a mortar attack, it said in a statement from Qatar.

Excellent!
If we can get the bad guys without sending up a plane or a helicopter with a highly-trained and valuable pilot, that's a very good thing and perhaps with some fine-tuning, these armed Predators will make those "Black Hawk Down" scenarios few and far between if not a thing of the past.
Then, there's this development in Missile Defense tech news, also:
Integrated Testing Of First Airborne Ray Gun Completed

Lockheed Martin has completed factory testing of the optical benches for the Airborne Laser's Beam Control/Fire Control (BC/FC) system. The Airborne Laser (ABL) is the first megawatt-class laser weapon system to be carried on a specially configured 747-400F aircraft, designed to autonomously detect, track and destroy hostile ballistic missiles.

The Beam Control/Fire Control system will accurately point, focus and fire the laser to provide sufficient energy to destroy the missile while it is still in the highly vulnerable boost phase of flight - before separation of its warheads.

The ABL program is managed by the Missile Defense Agency and is executed by the U.S. Air Force from Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M.
[...]
Lockheed Martin performed extensive testing to verify that the system accurately controls every mirror at operational data rates. The tests validated that the BC/FC system is capable of acquiring a target, initiating tracking of the target, initiating atmospheric compensation, firing the high-energy laser and shutting down the system while maintaining beam quality and accuracy. To accomplish the tasks at the required speeds, the BC/FC system executes over 600,000 lines of "C" and Ada high-order software using the computer processing power of more than 80 Power Pcs.

"These computers are capable of executing over 72 billion instructions per second," said Lockheed Martin ABL program director Rob Brimmer.

Well, wake up Buck Rogers!
The future is here!
Looks as if Missile Defense is becoming more operationally real all the time and not a moment too soon!
Great work, America and hopefully, Lockheed Martin--a huge D/FW employer--will spread their good fortune around North Texas!
And how about those computers to run the laser?
72 billion commands a second?!
Is this a great (and smart!) country or what?