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BAGHDAD (Army News Service, March 27, 2006) – Operation Swarmer wrapped up March 22 and accomplished the tactical objectives set out by combatant commanders on the ground without any casualties, Multinational Force Iraq officials said March 23. Operation Swarmer was the largest air assault since the initial invasion of Iraq. Company A, 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, “Angels from Hell” were among the most productive units in locating weapons caches and detaining suspected insurgents. Combined, the company found five caches and detained 18 suspected terrorists during the six-day mission. Capt. Jeff Lesperance said the company thoroughly searched more than 100...

Jihad Unspun (which the U.S. State Department has decried as playing a "major role in disinformation") also published, as one of its bylined features, a speech by former Vice President Al Gore. A portion of that feature reads, "So long as their big flamboyant lie remains an established fact in the public's mind, President Bush will be seen as justified in taking for himself the power to make war on his whim." Does that mean Jihad Unspun's editors feel some ideological kinship with both Gore and some obscure writer who suggests nations should arm themselves with nuclear weapons? I cannot...

WASHINGTON, March 23, 2006 – Operation Swarmer, a combined operation involving Iraqi soldiers and police commandos and coalition forces wrapped up yesterday without any casualties and all of the tactical objectives met, Multinational Force Iraq officials announced today. The mission began with the helicopter transport of about 1,500 Iraqi and coalition soldiers and Iraqi police commandos into a 10-by-10-square-mile area northeast of Samarra on March 16. The initial insertion aircraft and subsequent air security provided by the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade moved the force, made up of units from Iraq's 1st Commando Brigade, 1st Brigade, 4th Army Division, and...

WASHINGTON, March 21, 2006 – An unmanned aerial vehicle crashed this morning in Iraq, and combined operations continued in Salah ah Din province as part of Operation Swarmer. A pilot at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., was piloting an Air Force MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, based with the 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron at Balad Air Base, Iraq, when the aircraft crashed. Army and Air Force personnel recovered the wreckage and returned it to Balad Air Base. The MQ-1 Predator is a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV system. Its primary mission is interdiction and armed reconnaissance. Each Predator costs about $5 million....

TIKRIT, Iraq (Army News Service, March 20, 2006) – At least 11 caches were discovered and more than 60 suspected insurgents detained last week during Operation Swarmer, the airborne insertion into southern Salah Ad Din province, near Samarra. Coalition Forces encountered an IED along one of the roads in the area Saturday and one vehicle was damaged. No troops were injured in the attack, Multi-National Force-Iraq officials reported. Iraqi Army troops and their Coalition partners continued to clear the objective area northeast of Samarra Sunday. Enemy caches captured thus far yielded significant amounts of weapons and IED-making materials. Included in...

The latest criticism of the war in Iraq has become so politically manipulative, so disingenuous, so over-the-top that it is undermining a critical cause that we cannot, for a variety of global security reasons, afford to lose... Let’s look at last Thursday, March 16, the day the Iraqi National Assembly opened in Baghdad and a high-profile "air assault" northeast of Samarra, as an example:

And as far as the U.S. effort is concerned, it seems there is almost nothing the White House, the Pentagon, or for that matter any American rifleman on the ground can do that is good enough to garner so much as a one-line "attaboy" from many of our country’s largest newspapers and television news networks. Let’s look at last Thursday, March 16, the day the Iraqi National Assembly opened in Baghdad and a high-profile "air assault" northeast of Samarra, as an example:

But contrary to what many many television networks erroneously reported, the operation was by no means the largest use of airpower since the start of the war. ("Air Assault" is a military term that refers specifically to transporting troops into an area.) In fact, there were no airstrikes and no leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo op. What’s more, there were no shots fired at all and the units had met no resistance, said the U.S. and Iraqi commanders. The operation, which doubled the population of the...

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2006 – Iraqi security forces and U.S. servicemembers participating in Operation Swarmer and other combined operations continued to capture hidden terrorist weapons caches, while detaining and processing terrorist suspects yesterday, military officials in Iraq reported. Operation Swarmer, an ongoing, methodical search of a 10-mile-by-10-mile area in the Samarra region, has netted six weapons caches and roughly 50 terrorist suspects, officials said. The weapons caches included mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades, rockets, artillery rounds and a significant amount of other bomb-making materials for improvised explosive devices. Seventeen of the roughly 50 detainees were released after questioning and the others...

50 aircraft,1500 Iraqui/ US Troops in Samra (n of baghdad) , largest air and land assult since we went in.