Ferocious Gun Battle That Left No Bodies

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 12-2-2003 | Jack Fairweather

[Gumption]

Rather than being really really mean we should do something really really nice for the Iraqi people. Like say ... send all the women, children and old people on paid vacations to Europe for a few weeks.

[BikerNYC]

Not leaving your dead and wounded on the battlefield is a cornerstone of military professionalism.

Perhaps. But there was once a day when military professionalism was measured by the neat and tidy rows of British soldiers firing their muskets against an unprofessional American army who hid in the trees and hills.

[clamboat]

Planted transmitters?!? Yeah, when the US soldiers don't dare even stop to search the dead or actually count them (yes, all the numbers are after-battle "estimates"), how do you expect them to get out and plant transmitters on the bodies?

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

That would be a great idea!

[Political Junkie Too]

Ferocious Gun Battle That Left No Bodies

Is this like the French book about the 9/11 plane that hit the Pentagon but left no wreckage?

-PJ

[txhurl]

Um, lead-coated transmitters. Chewy on the outside, beepy in the inside.

[glorgau]

They [the Americans] have to respect our feelings and traditions and customs,

Says who? The Americans do it because they are nice, not because they must.

[blam]

Another thread on this subject:

Mystery Shrouds Whereabouts Of Bodies Of 54 Insurgents Said Killed By US

[Pikamax]

"Iraqis in Samarra told a different story. Some of their accounts were easily disprovable but there was consensus that the American troops fired randomly at times, and that there were no uniformed Iraqi fighters in their midst. Several detailed descriptions from Iraqis confirmed that guerrillas were also firing on the Americans, and that there were prolonged fire fights."

so according to all the reports, there was no bodies, people did shoot at us, we fired back, everyone can account for 8 people. eh

[Archangelsk]

Different, bygone era. We have the most professional armed force on the block and we don't leave our dead and wounded on the battlefield. My guess is that those phantom Iraqi divisions that we couldn't find are beginning to reappear.

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Captain Andy Deponai, whose tank was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), said:

Sure sounds like women and children to me!!!!

[Burkeman1]

Just a side issue here (and I am sure someone else has mentioned it on another thread)- but could this attack not have been by insurgents but by well organized criminals trying to get the dinars the troops were delivering? This was an atypical attack for the insurgents. Not their usual fire a mortar round or two and run. Perhaps the motivator of greed was the driving force behind this attack? Kind of a reverse "Kelly's Hereos" scenerio.

[Gumption]

I think I heard that all dinars will be worthless as of tomorrow or something.

[Symblized]

The Telegraph is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Fox News.

[Gumption]

I'm sorry ... we had the new dinars in the convoy. My bad.

[txhurl]

Maybe we alerted the Iraqi cops that Wells Fargo was en route.

To see if they'd leak it to the robbers.

[MissAmericanPie]

What is wrong with these idiots? Or could it be they thik we are this dumb and gullible? The Musilm relgion requires that a body be in the ground by sundown.

I'll kick in a few pennies to buy these dorks a movie on VHS called "Rules of Engagement" starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, it covers in depth the way bodies and guns vanish in shootouts involving peaceful Muslims.

[Burkeman1]

I just find it a little suspicious that the first coordinated and sustained attack from these "insugents" in months was against a convoy loaded with money. If the reports of this fire fight are accurate- the attackers had mustered 70 to 100 men for this ambush. The insurgents thus far have not been able to muster anything like those numbers for such a large and sustained fire fight. But a criminal gang could and could do so without rousing suspicion or be picked up by our intel. I think we would have seen smaller engagements and incremental increases in attacks by the insurgents. This seems like too big of a leap for them. Just my two cents worth. I would like to know how much money the troops were delivering to see if it would be worth it for a large gang of criminals to risk such a large "armed robbery" attempt.

[templar]

"Estimated" number of KIA. This smacks of the Vietnam Combat Math of "We fired 10,000 rounds, therefore we must have killed 54 of the enemy." Granted this was in the Guardian, but unsettling nonetheless. Show the bodies.

That was my first thought as well. In two instances I am personaly familiar with a dead water buffalo was reported as three enemy dead (the cow was all that was found, with blood everywhere) and one of ours dead was all that was reported when I personally saw five that had to be dead. It seems that when the truth doesn't look the way we want it to, it sometimes gets interpreted till it does. Nobody's fault really, it's just sorta the way it works.

[Burkeman1]

US forces in Iraq have to rely on thousands of Iraqis who work for them in thousands of different tasks. Infiltration is most likely widespread as it always is in any occupation scenerio. I would imagine the insurgents have about the same level of intel on our movements and plans as we do on them.