Posted on 03/31/2004 10:37:53 AM PST by Destro
9 Americans, including 4 civilians, killed in Iraq Contractors' bodies mutilated, dragged through Fallujah's streets
NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 1:06 p.m. ET March 31, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq - In one of the bloodiest and most horrifying days since the end of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, five U.S. troops and four American civilian contractors were killed in separate attacks in the Sunni Triangle west of Baghdad. After ambushing the vehicle carrying the civilian contractors in Fallujah, jubilant Iraqis burned and mutilated the dead, then dragged two corpses through the streets and hung them from a bridge spanning the Euphrates River.
The brutal treatment of the bodies occurred after the contractors were killed in a rebel attack on their two SUVs in the city about 35 miles west of Baghdad, scene of some of the worst violence on both sides of the conflict since the beginning of the American occupation a year ago.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said at a briefing in Baghdad that it was not known what the coalition contractors were doing in Fallujah — apparently without a military escort — when the attack occurred.
U.S. officials, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said that all four contractors were Americans who worked for Blackwater USA of Moyock, N.C. The officials did not confirm reports from the scene that a woman was among the dead.
Blackwater USA supplies security guards to the Coalition Provisional Authority and has provided protection for Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer, among other coalition officials. The officials said it was not immediately clear what the four people killed Wednesday were doing in Fallujah.
Five U.S. troops killed in bombing The killings of the contractors came shortly after five U.S. troops died when their military vehicle ran over a bomb in Malahma, about 12 miles to the northwest of Fallujah, among the reed-lined roads through some of Iraq’s richest farmland.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Because our forces and intel probably realize that this photo-op 'Mogadishu II-Falujah' is probably likely foreign rent-a-jihad and Baath Party members, rather than representative of the area population.
Not that the kneejerk 'let's nuke everyone else now' 5-star keyboard generals would ever discern such a key distinction...
???
And do it with extreme predjudice.
We've already won in Iraq as we never did in Vietnam - it's now a matter of keeping the peace. How would leveling Damascus or Tehran help our cause in Iraq? We can bomb Iran and Syria at will but that may only swell the ranks of their terrorists entering Iraq. Our military is simply unfit for peacekeeping operations after major combat. As a Chinese strategist once warned Genghis Khan, "You can conquer whole nations on horseback, but you must dismount to rule them." The US military circa 2004 isn't designed to dismount.
They were security contractors from North Carolina!
Mr. Fusion/Jomini! Please check in!!! It's been weeks since we've heard from you!!
Even Hoplite wouldn't want you to suffer this way!
Hear, hear.
ABC News reporting they were private security from a firm in North Carolina.
The world doesn't need another "Lidice."
You've got that right.
OTOH, I think Falluja has just put itself on the A-list for cleanup raids. For something like this, there are bound to be people talking. I think we'll see a lot of salamikazes taken out of action as a result of this little festival.
The left seems not to have a problem with Saddam doing that, so I guess it would be okay for us to do it.
Go.
Sorry boys, there's a new sheriff in town.
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