Bush leaves awe in his Baghdad wake (good read)

telegraph india ^ | 11/28/03

[knak]

Tikrit, Nov. 28 (Reuters): Awesome, courageous, a good move for morale, no way — these were some of the reactions of American soldiers when President George W. Bush flew secretly into Iraq for Thanksgiving yesterday.

“That is absolutely awesome,” said Sergeant Aaron Hildernbrandt, from Claremont, Florida, as he watched news of Bush’s two-and-a-half hour swing-through on television in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit.

“I think that shows real personal courage,” said his companion Sergeant Gilbert Nail of Oklahoma, both of whom had just returned from a patrol through Saddam Hussein’s hometown.

Bush secretly left his Texas ranch late on Wednesday and flew on Air Force One to Baghdad, where he helped serve Thanksgiving lunch to around 600 soldiers at Baghdad International Airport.

The lightning presidential visit seemed to go some way to dispelling an impression of low morale among US troops in Iraq given by many recent reports.

“I think this is a great move. For him to actually come here and spend time with the troops on the holiday. This is a good move,” said Private Michael Debratta from New York as he manned a checkpoint in central Baghdad.

“This is definitely a good move for morale. It makes us feel better that our leader is actually here on a holiday.”

Bush’s bold visit was kept secret from all but a very small pool of White House reporters who travelled with him on the long flight from the US.

The President, wearing a grey military zip-up top, was welcomed by Paul Bremer, the US-appointed governor of Iraq, and helped serve food to a group of stunned soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division and the 1st Armored Division.

They cheered and shouted as Bush, who is the overall commander of US forces, entered the military mess at the airport, and whooped and whistled as he made a short address.

“I was just looking for a warm meal somewhere,” Bush said. “Thanks for inviting me to dinner... I can’t think of a finer group of folks to have Thanksgiving dinner with than you all.”

Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell, the commander of the 1-22 Battalion of the 4th Infantry Division, which is leading the hunt for Saddam around Tikrit, was astonished at Bush’s visit.

“No way,” he told a reporter when told of the trip.

“I think that’s great. It sends a strong message from the commander-in-chief that we’re focused on winning. It’s a real morale booster.” The US has more than 130,000 troops in Iraq. In recent months they have faced a deepening insurgency from loyalists of the former regime, who almost daily set off explosions or fire mortars at US positions.

More than 180 US soldiers have been killed since Washington declared an end to major combat on May 1. But despite those losses, soldiers said today’s visit from Bush was just the sort of thing to keep them upbeat.

“It’s a total morale booster,” said Nail in Tikrit. “I didn’t get to see him but what matters is that he cares enough to come and visit.”

Daring stunt

Britain’s Times newspaper hailed Bush’s trip as “one of the most daring stunts in modern American history”.

“Probably not since the American Civil War, when battles raged only a few miles from Washington, has the incumbent of the White House deliberately placed himself in so much danger,” the newspaper’s diplomatic editor wrote.

“Election raid on Baghdad,” declared a front-page headline in France’s Left-wing newspaper Liberation, beside a photograph of Bush carrying a platter laden with roast turkey and fruit and surrounded by US troops.

“This ‘Baghdad coup’, primarily intended for the US public, was a brilliantly conceived and executed piece of election propaganda,” the newspaper said.

But opinions on the trip differed in other sections of the press, with Britain’s tabloid Daily Mirror newspaper and The Independent both running a similar photograph of Bush holding a platter with the headline: “The Turkey has landed”.

In Baghdad, discussions were under way on amendments to a new US-backed plan to hand sovereignty back to Iraqis by July, after the Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said the political roadmap paid too little heed to Islam and did not include enough Iraqi involvement.

[stands2reason]

Dude--- don't drink and Freep.

[Justa]

"That would be news to John McCain or any pilot who fought in Viet Nam."

Only if they went through the war grossly misinformed. The SAMS in Vietnam were very large, RADAR-guided missiles. They were as big as telephone poles and were towed around by tractor trailers to fixed firing sites the size of 4 football fields.

The modern man-portable heat-seeking SAMs are the size of a WWII bazook. They are carried by one man and are fire-and-forget. There are reportedly several hundred of them unaccouted for in Iraqi aresenals and a DHL cargo plane was hit by one a week ago. The NVA and VC didn't have anything like them in Vietnam.

[Fledermaus]

I just had to repost this:

To: Burkeman1: You know, your act is getting old. You remind me of a bad comic from the 70's that still thinks he's funny today.

Your MO is now boring routine. The subject doesn't matter, but you are more predictable when talking about the war on terror you think doesn't exist.

1), you say something nice or make a few general comments.

2), you add some teeth and change your mind and start doubting.

3), you go fully into left wing mode and start complaining.

4), you start getting hostile to posters that disagree with you.

5), you then start calling people names like idiot, moron, a-hole, etc.

6), you then "challenge" the poster to some weird game you play within your MO to "private e-mail me with your real name and address and phone number". And in your little mind I'm sure if they refuse, correctly, you then fulfill your ego with the idea that "I've won the argument, they failed my challenge!" bullcrap.

7), you "apologize" for being rude and mean while you still fire zings.

8), you complain to the Admin Moderator about being slighted or abused or called names.

9), you then start all over again at #1 with someone else in another thread.

When you think about it, it's pretty pitiful and almost sad you are so unhappy and lonely in your life. I bet you treat everyone around you the same way.

Another one of your MO's, switch the argument after you lose.

They weren't talking RPG's, they said there weren't "heat seeking missiles".

You don't bait and switch very well for scrutiny.

[stands2reason]

See my post #101.

[VOA]

They didn't have RPG's back then...

I'm not a small arms expert...but I think RPGs may have been around then.
But I guess it took a group of really evil people (Muslims, not just Communists) to
try to use them to knock down flying craft.

[XBob]

Johnson and Nixon didn't fly into Hanoi, they flew into ThanSanot Air Force Base, Saigon, South Vietnam. Surrounded by 500,000 US troops and 2 million South Vietnamese troops, in the days before shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles and RPG's.

[VOA]

“I think that shows real personal courage,” said his companion Sergeant Gilbert Nail of Oklahoma

I'll take the word of one of my Okie homeboys!

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

Thanks, XBob. Your credentials speak for themselves.

[lentulusgracchus]

Was that Panzer or Pansy....

Sorry, Ann, but he's right. The Germans had at least two kinds of RPG-type weapon, which he named correctly. The British also had a projector-type weapon they called PIAT (rent A Bridge Too Far to see it portrayed in action), and the U.S. had at least two models of the bazooka, one of which was stout enough to take a Tiger.

[Justa]

Here are some pictures for you:

The Vietnamese used these:

These are big. They are high-altitude, long-range missles. They are RADAR-guided.

The Iraqis use these:

These are small. They are low-altitude, short-range missiles. They are heat-seeking.

The Vietnamese missiles were never a threat to Johnson or Nixon. Their visits took place well beyond their range. The second missiles are currently used by insurgents in Bagdhad and surrounding areas. They are a great threat.

By the way, Johnson and Nixon visited to South Vietnam.

[RobFromGa]

Well know- I would usuaslly get upset by such a comment about me.

That was probably before you became a Socialist, Clinton-licker.

[XBob]

56 - "At Cam Rahn Bay....hardly a combat zone."

Sorry, my error about ThanSanuht. Cam Rahn was a Rivierra resort, relatively, a Giant US Navy base, far from war, for most of the war.

[FairOpinion]

"Hillary's visit sounded as exciting as two-week-old turkey..."

==

Speaking of Hillary and turkey in one sentence:

[lentulusgracchus]

The SAMS in Vietnam were very large, RADAR-guided missiles. They were as big as telephone poles and were towed around by tractor trailers to fixed firing sites the size of 4 football fields.

Later in the war, the Sovs started shipping the NVA thugboys some SA-4's. These were mounted two to a tracked launcher, and they and their command, reload, and I-Band radar tracks ("Straight Flush", I think, but someone remind me) traveled together and didn't need a prepared site. American pilots who saw them in the air made the same comparison to "flying telephone poles" and noticed that they were appreciably slower than the older SA-2 "Guideline", which was the AAM that nailed Francis Gary Powers. Their primary raison d'etre was their extreme mobility. They continued in Pact service into the 1980's.

[XBob]

74 - "Grand Nephew of a Silver Star winner ..."

Your ancestors have a good record. What's your excuse?

[lentulusgracchus]

Your upper illustration is of an SA-2 "Guideline", the principal missile used in the Vietnamese War. It also saw service in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the Persian Gulf. The guidance radar was the "Fan Song" radar family; later (post-1970) models employed "Fan Song F (Foxtrot)", which also allowed the operator to substitute electro-optical (TV) guidance for semi-active or active radar homing. Launch sites were fixed or semi-fixed, with three to six missiles per battery arranged in a pinwheel pattern. The radar antennae were mounted atop the command trailer, an arrangement their Vietnamese and Russian operators soon learned was vulnerable to Shrike anti-radar missiles.

[MEG33]

Well said.

[lentulusgracchus]

Outstanding flame, very well done.

Sometime in 2144 or afterward, some PhD candidate will do a monograph on "public brawling styles of the 20th-century American Left", and your post will be cited in a footnote. Well, maybe.

[Fledermaus]

Sometime in 2144 or afterward, some PhD candidate will do a monograph on "public brawling styles of the 20th-century American Left", and your post will be cited in a footnote. Well, maybe.

I'm flattered. But that would mean 99.999999% of everything else written, said, posted, etc. would have been lost in some tragic event!

[XBob]

99 - They weren't talking RPG's, they said there weren't "heat seeking missiles".

Any of you Army/Marine guys know about Charlie using RPG's? We in the Air Force got mortared with regularity, small arms fire, and sachel charges, but I don't remember any RPG's fired by Charle.