70 % of freedom is on the march..
Optimistic reports from the U.S. military says they now have 70% of Falluja under control. Control of what is the question. Seems to be pretty much a big pile of rubble.

Reuters:

Briefing reporters in Washington by video teleconference from Iraq, (General) Metz said the 2,000-3,000 rebels in Falluja were putting up scattered resistance with "little coherence".

Rebel casualties were higher than expected and civilian losses were low, Metz said, without giving details. [Details, we don't need no stinkin' details. You'll eat your tripe and like it.]

While General Metz replays "all quiet on the western front" an actual participant of the grand battle says:

"There are lots of them. We took heavy fire," Gunnery Sergeant Ishmail Castillo told Reuters.

"They opened up on my tank. They don't look like they are going to cave in."

Castillo said his tank had killed six fighters and that two marines were wounded in fighting. "One of the marines was hit in the head by RPG shrapnel," he said.

"They hit us from one area and then another right afterwords. There is in-depth organization. There were small-arms attacks all night," he said.

From Al-Jazeera and the BBC local reporter Al-Badrani said...

US forces had taken some casualties. "Two US military tanks have been so far destroyed in Julan neighbourhood, where the most violent clashes are taking place," he said.

"Three US armoured vehicles have been also destroyed in other parts of the city. The clashes are very violent. Fighters have showed up from other neighbourhoods and streets the US forces are unfamiliar with.

"US forces entered central Falluja city at around 12:00 (Iraqi local time) but were fiercely attacked by the fighters," al-Badrani said.

"They withdrew from the area after half an hour, heading for their positions in the northern parts of the city," he added.

Residents told al-Badrani the crews of two US tanks deserted their vehicles in Julan, leaving them to be seized by fighters.

70% of what?

I think it is misleading to say the US controls 70% of the city because the fighters are constantly on the move.

They go from street to street, attacking the army in some places, letting them through elsewhere so that they can attack them later.

The fighters have told me they are prepared to resist the Americans until the death.
They say they are fighting not just for Falluja, but for all Iraq.

The rest of Iraq is naturally at peace due to the Falluja attacks.:

[It seems most of the insurgents just picked up and left...Why won't they just stay and be killed?]

Iraqi rebels seized the centre of the city of Ramadi and attacked police stations elsewhere as US-led troops continued their Falluja assault.

Armed insurgents in Ramadi moved in when US troops withdrew from the Sunni city, a former rebel stronghold.

On Tuesday, rebels also targeted several police stations in and around Baquba, about 60km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said.

A number of police officers were injured in the attacks and at least one attacker killed, reports say.

In the oil-rich Kurdish town of Kirkuk - about 250km (155 miles) north of Baghdad - a suspected car bomb outside an Iraqi national guard based killed at least two people, officials said.

In a separate incident, a group of armed men attacked a police station in south-western Doura neighbourhood in Baghdad, police said.

?Mlitants abduct a first cousin of Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and two of his family members in Baghdad, reportedly threatening to kill them unless the Falluja siege is lifted

?The governor in Mosul imposes an indefinite curfew after militants kill four members of the Iraqi security forces and a foreign contractor

?Attacks at Balad, Baiji, Karbala and Tuz leave 12 members of the Iraqi security forces and one US soldier dead.

The Civilians:

Al-Badrani said many civilians had died in indiscriminate bombing of the city and people had resorted to burying their dead in gardens. Many houses have been destroyed.

Allawi, who on Tuesday imposed a night curfew on Baghdad for an indefinite period, got a personal taste of Sunni anger at a Ramadan Iftar meal the same day.

"You have to stop fighting for four or five hours," Adnan al-Dulaimi, a Sunni official in the Religious Affairs Ministry, urged Allawi before the evening meal, a pool reporter said.

"Give them time to rescue the injured. There are civilians getting killed in Falluja. You are responsible for their lives in front of God," Dulaimi declared.

Allawi said he had tried all options before using force. "We have nothing against the civilians of Falluja," he added.

Aid agencies have highlighted the plight of civilians in Falluja where up to 50,000 people remain out of a pre-war population of 300,000.

Paul Wood (Of the BBC} notes that despite efforts by US forces to select targets carefully, their use of heavy artillery and tanks is bound to lead to civilian casualties.

What is this all for? Operation Pyhrric victory...

According to the Asia Times:

Like the United States' original sin of the invasion of Iraq of last year, the current Fallujah operation is based on a mix of deliberate disinformation, illusions, wishful-thinking and inept psywar. What has been the outcome of this?

?The perception that Fallujah is the source of all the evils confronting the US in Iraq. This is similar to the perception created before the invasion last year that Iraq was the source of all the evils confronting the US in West Asia.

The occupation of Iraq did not lead to peace and the end of terrorism in West Asia. It only made them even more elusive. Similarly, the occupation of Fallujah, which should not pose a major military problem for the US, is unlikely to lead to peace and an end to anti-US resistance and terrorism in Iraq.

The occupation of Fallujah will lead to more Fallujahs, and not to peace.

The perception that there is a central command and control guiding all acts of violence and terrorism in Iraq and that its general headquarters is located in Fallujah. There is as yet no credible evidence of any such central command and control operating from Fallujah.

Most of the resistance and terrorist operations all over Iraq seem to be autonomous and not subject to centralized control...

There need be no doubt about the US ability to reoccupy Fallujah. But that will be neither a beginning nor the end. It will be only a continuation of the bleeding of Iraq and the bleeding of the US.

Medical services paralized in Falluja.
Al Jazeera reports:

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was "deeply concerned about reports that the injured cannot receive adequate medical care."

"The ICRC urges the belligerents to ensure that all those in need of such care - whether friend or foe - be given access to medical facilities and that medical personnel and vehicles can function without hindrance at all times," a statement said.

Residents say scores of civilians have been killed or wounded in 24 hours of fighting since US-led forces pushed deep into the city on Monday evening.

Doctors said people brought in at least 15 dead civilians at the main clinic in Falluja on Monday.

By Tuesday, there were no clinics open, residents said, and no way to count casualties.

Overnight US bombardments hit a clinic inside the Sunni Muslim city, killing doctores, nurses and patients, residents said. US military authorities denied the reports

Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at Falluja Hospital, said the city was running out of medical supplies.

"There is not a single surgeon in Falluja. We had one ambulance hit by US fire and a doctor wounded.

There are scores of injured civilians in their homes whom we can't move," he said by telephone from a house where he had gone to help the wounded.

From the BBC

The BBC News website spoke by phone to Fadhil Badrani, a journalist in Falluja who reports for the BBC World Service in Arabic.

I cannot say how many people have been killed but after two days of bombing, this city looks like Kabul.

Large portions of it have been destroyed but it is so dangerous to leave the house that I have not been able to find out more about casualties.

A medical dispensary in the city centre was bombed earlier.

I don't know what has happened to the doctors and patients who were there.

It was last place you could get medical attention because the big hospital on the outskirts of Falluja was captured by the Americans on Monday.

Writing from Iraq.

From Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches: (News from Baghdad.)

When my friend Aziz stopped by this afternoon, I asked him how he and his family are doing..."If we are not talking about the situation, we are good," he said despondently, "I think we will have civil war, sooner or later."

He shook his head while talking about Falluja. It is estimated that between 30-100,000 civilians remain in the city, people who have been referred to in mainstream media as "refusing to leave."

"So many people in Falluja are poor and cannot leave.

Land and houses in Baghdad are both very expensive, and so many people in Falluja are too poor to leave,"

Aziz said with resignation, "The Americans are doing what they did last time-taking control of the main hospital and not letting the hospitals and clinics and ambulances function. They are killing civilians, just like before."

I shudder to think of what is happening there to the civilians.

The Hospitals again:


As per April policy, the US military raided Falluja General Hospital and cut it off from the city. As per April they've impeded the medical services, committing yet another war crime.

There are reports from one of the doctors at said hospital that one of their ambulances was shot while attempting to leave the hospital, just like in April when I was in Falluja; all of the ambulances were targeted then as well.

Operation Phantom Victory.
Again with the hospitals!

Al-Jazeera reports:

Warplanes have bombed a government clinic in the centre of Falluja as US ground forces engaged in pitched battles with fighters defending the city.

Residents said the one-storey Popular Clinic which had been receiving wounded anti-US fighters and civilians was hit overnight as US-led forces pressed into the city.

The residents said on Tuesday it was impossible to reach the clinic because of heavy bombing and US tanks in the area.

The clinic's telephones were no longer working.
Al-Dulaimi said the hospital's staff, doctors and patients, have all fallen victim to the assault.

He said such fierce bombings have not been witnessed since the Iran-Iraq war.

An AFP reporter in Jolan said one building in every 10 had been flattened. As US-led troops closed in on the neighbourhood overnight, at least four 2,000-pound (900-kilogramme) bombs were dropped in the city's northwest.

Doctors said at least 15 civilians had been killed in Monday's fighting.

Large U.S. death toll.

A total of 14 Americans have been killed in the past two days across Iraq - including five in and around Falluja.

The latest US deaths brings to 1140 the number of US troops killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003, according to Pentagon figures.

Our friends the Pakis.
According to the Pakistan Times, Numb Skull University graduates some Marines as well. (George W loves his Paki friends. He's "working hard to convince both the Indians and the Pakis there's a way to deal with their problems without going to war.")

Sgt. Maj. Carlton W. Kent, the top enlisted Marine in Iraq, told troops the coming battle of Fallujah would be "no different" than the historic fights at Inchon in Korea, the flag-raising victory at Iwo Jima, or the bloody assault to dislodge North Vietnamese from the ancient citadel of Hue they seized in the 1968 Tet Offensive.

"You're all in the process of making history," Kent told a crowd of some 2,500 Marines.

"This is another Hue city in the making. I have no doubt, if we do get the word, that each and every one of you is going to do what you have always done kick some butt." [Again, I still say we need the South Vietnamese army in there.]

Life's not perfect.






Moses speaks for the burning Bush.

Okay, let me get this straight. Rummy was saying on September 24th:

"If there were to be an area where the extremists focused during the election period, and an election was not possible in that area at that time, so be it. You have the rest of the election and you go on. Life's not perfect." [Unless, Inch'allah ,W get's re-elected.]

Today as we bomb the crap out of Fallujah he is saying:

"...One part of the country cannot remain under the rule of assassins"

"I've said that a country, to be successful, simply cannot allow there to be safe havens for people who are determined to kill innocent Iraqis and to bring down the government and to try to intimidate public officials and police chiefs and ministers and deputy ministers. You can't allow that in a country. That has to be stopped."


So, as I understand it, before life wasn't perfect, but now we need to go in there so life will be perfect.

Certainly we won't kill Iraqis:

(Before the war.)

"It is precisely because of our overwhelming power and our certainty of victory that we believe we can win this war and remove the regime while still striving to spare innocent lives.

Our military capabilities are so devastating and precise that we can destroy an Iraqi tank under a bridge without damaging the bridge. We do not need to kill thousands of innocent Iraqis to remove Saddam Hussein from power." [Famous last words.]

Rummy says now, and you can take this to the bank cuz' we got that hospital at the beginning:

"...there aren't going be large numbers of civilians killed and certainly not by U.S. forces."

Certainly not! Bully!

Hospital, prapaganda victory for U.S.

This is a different kind of war. Now, instead of taking strategic objectives, we go after hospitals. The Israelis would be proud at how well their American students are doing.

WaPo:

U.S. and Iraqi forces entered Fallujah General Hospital late Sunday night and immediately began an inventory of supplies and medical equipment,

We've surrounded it to protect it," (Col. John R. Ballard, commander of the Marine 4th Civil Affairs Group based in Washington, D.C.} said. "The key word here is to protect." [Right. Roger, that.]

"We don't want bad guys using ambulances to attack our troops and innocent civilians," Ballard said. [Where have I heard that before? Gaza?]

Ny Times:

The hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties. [Back in the first attack in April.]

"It's a center of propaganda," a senior American officer said Sunday.

The U.S military said today that insurgents had been in control of Fallouja General Hospital -- located on the west bank of the Euphrates -- and were "forcing the doctors there to release propaganda and false information." [Right, now they'll do that for us.]

LA Times::

Iraqi soldiers stormed through the facility, blasting open doors and pulling handcuffed patients into the halls in search of gunmen.

The Guardian:

Dr Salih al-Issawi, the head of the hospital, said he had asked US officers to allow doctors and ambulances go into the main part of the city to help the wounded, but permission had been refused. There was no confirmation from the US military.

Speaking of the Iraqi National Guard:

I heard this report on NPR on Saturday but haven't seen anything else about it besides this:

(NY Times)

A National Public Radio correspondent embedded with the Marines outside Fallouja reported desertions among the Iraqis.

One Iraqi battalion shrunk from over 500 men down to 170 over the past two week -- with 255 members quitting over the weekend, the correspondent said. [Don't forget the general who deserted too.]

---Yes, we'll have that security force up in no time and they can take over for us right after the election. Maybe, we can ask the South Vietnamese army to come help with the training.

Fallujah, redux.

The BBC reports:

"Our correspondent says the marines believe Falluja will be their biggest engagement since Hue, the Vietnamese city they captured in 1968, losing 142 men and killing thousands of the enemy."

Yes, destroy the town to save it. No zippo raids this time, though. We've got much bigger lighters now. Pepper the LZ with 500 lbs bombs.

I'm glad we learned our lesson in Vietnam.

From Numb Skull University:

Ever wonder what the Nascar dads are thinking about the situation in Fallujah?

To start us off here's a thought from professor "Ford612."

---I hope we kill all those sad mofos.

And some responses:

---Good. Flatten the place and everybody in it. They knew it was coming.

---We are bombing the crap out of Fallujah with tanks and planes.

---God be with our troops.

---Roger, that.

---We've been fighting with one hand behind our back since we have been there. It's time to open the cans of whoopass and get on with it. It is what it is.

---Yes, it is time to take control.

---Congratulations America For re-electing President Bush. [Roger, that]

Of course, there are some more nuanced and thoughtful takes on the issue too.

From something called "Pravda:"

---(Use) the German response to the Warsaw uprising of August 1944 [That's the best one!]

---In true Machiavellian style, you always crush your opponent to a point where he is not able to respond. The Americans are wooses for not opting for the most direct and most lethal form possible. Unless the US is capable of destroying the entire city, they will have lost the battle.

---The Iraqi Shi'ite-head insurgents are getting their funding from Iran. We also owe Iran a good bombing from the 1970's. While we're at it we should make an example of Iran. B-1b's would be nice.

---Kill, Kill, Kill! Let God sort it out!!

I ownder if any of these idiots had ever seen 600 corpses, the number of civilians said to have been killed the last time we went into Fallujah.

Of course, nothing even approaching what the German did in Warsaw. That should be our model.

W's got capital and collateral (damages) to prove it!

Not that things are going from bad to worse or anything but besides the hourly car-bombings assassinations and executions of large numbers of Iraqi security forces...

Baghdad, 6 November - Amidst continous airstrikes and bombing sprees of the US-led occupation forces against Falluja and the ongoing raids on Samarra, a group of US-trained Iraqi National Guards have clashed with US troops and one Iraqi officer is reported to have deserted yesterday.

It is feared he might turn over his informations about the US operation plans to resistance fighters, as the high-ranking Iraqi commander of 160 troops had deserted after having received a full briefing on US military plans to practically flatten the city of Falluja,


Now that W has got his mandate:

Analysts expect a very high death toll among civilians in Falluja in case of the planned assault on the city and the interim Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi has been touring Europe in the hope of drumming up at least tacit support for the US-strategy of reducing resistance by bombing Iraqi cities deemed to be strongholds of insurgency.

In his letter, Kofi Annan warned the occupation forces and Allawi that the mounting military violence against the Iraqi people is bound to swell the numbers of resistance fighters and risks to jeopardize the general elections scheduled to be held in January next year.

Mission accomplished in Samarra?

This is the template for what Fallujah will look like after we expel the insurgents in the run up to elections? (Remember all the hooplah when they launched the attack on Sammarra right as the first presidential debate started?}

Let me guess, we can expect more violence because people who hate our freedoms are desperate.

From the A.P..

Insurgents set off at least two car bombs and attacked a police station Saturday in the central Iraqi town of Samarra, killing at least 21 people and wounding 22 in what could be an effort to take pressure off Fallujah, where U.S. forces are gearing up for an assault.

Elsewhere, 20 American soldiers were wounded in the Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi, the U.S. command said without elaborating.

The attacks in Samarra, 60 miles northeast of Fallujah, occurred in a city that U.S. and Iraqi forces reclaimed from insurgents in September and had sought to use as a model for pacifying restive Sunni Muslim areas of the country.

Early Saturday, however, armed militants stormed a police station, killing 12 policemen and injuring one. In other attacks, a suicide car bomber detonated explosives inside a stolen police car near the mayor's office, a second car bomb exploded near a U.S. base and a mortar fell on a crowded market.

The dead included an Iraqi National Guard commander, Abdel Razeq Shaker al-Garmali, hospital officials said. The town's mayor was reportedly injured in the car bombing.

Residents said U.S. forces, using loudspeakers to make the announcement, imposed an indefinite curfew on Samarra. American warplanes and helicopters were heard roaming overhead.

Like bees to honey:

The commander of a British regiment that lost three soldiers in a suicide attack near Baghdad had expressed security concerns before his unit was redeployed to aid U.S. forces, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Black Watch commanding officer Lt. Col. James Cowan had written a series of e-mails saying he expected "every lunatic terrorist from miles around to descend on us like bees to honey," the Daily Telegraph said.

The three soldiers and an Iraqi translator were killed in an insurgent suicide attack on Thursday. Eight others were injured.

The newspaper, which did not specify to whom Cowan was writing, quoted his e-mail as saying: "I hope the government knows what it has got itself into. I'm not sure they fully appreciate the risks."

"The (U.S.) Marines we have taken over from have taken nine dead and 197 wounded since July. I hope we do better," he reportedly wrote.

The newspaper, which did not specify to whom Cowan was writing, quoted his e-mail as saying: "I hope the government knows what it has got itself into. I'm not sure they fully appreciate the risks."