[A.A. Cunningham]

No better friend, no worse enemy.

Major General James N. Mattis
Commanding General, 1st Marine Division

Major General James N. Mattis is currently serving as the Commanding General, 1st Marine Division. He assumed his current assignment on 2 August 2002.

As a Lieutenant, he served as a rifle and weapons platoon commander in the 3d Marine Division. As a Captain, he commanded a rifle company and a weapons company in the 1st Marine Brigade. As a Major, he commanded RS Portland. As a Lieutenant Colonel, he commanded 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, one of Task Force Ripper's assault battalions in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. As a Colonel, he commanded 7th Marines (Reinforced). As a Brigadier General, he commanded 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade and then Task Force 58, during operations in southern Afghanistan.

He is a graduate of the Amphibious Warfare School, Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and the National War College.

(Revised Oct 30, 2002)

[LADY J]

Just heard on Boortz radio show - a caller said that Iraqi's only get married on Thursday night. This attack happened on a Wednesday. Anyone have more info on this?

Hope they find more of these 'safe houses' and blow them away.

Way to go Marines!!

[b4its2late]

I believe the Marines.

It's the media I distrust.

[gunnyg]

Old Marines saying...
"You can shock the shit troops,
But you can't shit the shock troops!"
-Author Unknown

[lilylangtree]

NO MORE APOLOGIES TO ISLAMIC PIGS!

[Guillermo]

Is this typical in the Mohammedan culture? Wedding celebrations in this manner? (We know Mohammedan terrorists surround themselves with children).

[TomGuy]

What is with all the apologizing?

I knew this was 'the plan' the libs/dems had when half a dozen reporters in succession stood and asked Bush to apologize.

He didn't.

Next, photos of abuses in Iraqi prison (yeh, right, they were really abused.)

Since then, the apologies have been profuse and non-stop.

WE ARE AT WAR FOR YOUR CIVILIZATION AND OUR LIVES!!!

Enough with the apologeeeezzzz!!! Enough if enough!

[JamesA]

Boot the friggin media out. All they are doing is looking for the big scoop and sensationalism. The liberals and wacco Democrats then beat and hammer the story to death

[cyncooper]

Coalition briefing this morning aired on Fox, MSNBC and CNN.

At least two female reporters framed questions about "The wedding party".

Kimmitt said flat out this operation was weeks in the planning. That we had been checking out this site on the ground and by other means, and in fact he pointed out that during briefings in that very room over this time they had informed reporters that we suspected traffic from Syria coming in.

I also believe he said that after the operation went down we had numerous forces on the ground to check it out and saw no dead children. Daren Kagen on CNN still commented after the briefing that the fight had resulted in the death of children, so either I misheard him or Daren ignored him.

The reporters seemed reluctant to accept the word of the Coalition and appeared ready to believe the worst. Kimmitt said full and thorough investigations would be done to satify the factual state of the record so there would be no doubt as to what happened.

[Ranger]

Another wire service reported the burial of a popular wedding singer in Baghdad and his associate both of whom were killed in the attack.

[Ben Hecks]

WPMA (wedding party........everyone knows the rest)

[jrp]

Go Marines!
I'm sick of the enemy propaganda reported as gospel truth by our media.

[beachn4fun]

Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt....I don't have to apologize......

WHAT A MAN!

[Chieftain]

OOOORRRRAAAAHHHHH!!!

Attention everybody else in CENTCOM:

Listen to the Marines:
WE DON'T HAVE TO APOLOGIZE FOR KILLING THE ENEMY!

Semper Fi, Devil Dogs, you are bringing respect back for our troops.

[Chieftain]

OOOORRRRAAAAHHHHH!!!

Attention everybody else in CENTCOM:

Listen to the Marines:
WE DON'T HAVE TO APOLOGIZE FOR KILLING THE ENEMY!

Semper Fi, Devil Dogs, you are bringing respect back for our troops.

[usadave]

Asked about witness testimony and footage from Dubai-based Al Arabiya television which showed weeping relatives lowering bodies, one of a child, into graves, he said: "I have not seen the pictures but bad things happen in wars. I don't have to apologise for the conduct of my men."

Bravo. This is how military officers used to respond to questions regarding similar events in wars past. Good to hear it again.

[MissAmericanPie]

The press should be required to watch the movie, "Rules of Engagement". Maybe then they will get it, instead of taking their que's from the Euro press and other liberals.

[ambrose]

he obviously didn't pass his sensitivty training course.

[meadsjn]

Funny. No one needed a firearm at my wedding -- not even the father-in-law.

If those Iraqis had to fire off some warning shots when the groom lifted the face covering, she must have been one butt-ugly bride.

[cyncooper]

I posted yesterday what I heard from yesterday's news briefing at #52.

I waited all day yesterday for the transcript to be posted so I could confirm what I heard. I notice the transcript does confirm my post at #52.

I just made this this post on another thread:

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Finally, transcript up from yesterday's briefing. No surprise it was none other than Campbell Brown (who is hot on the trail of prisoner abuse over there, but was indeed one of the reporters to refer to "the wedding". See her initial question before the excerpt I have below). Here is the response Kimmitt gave that I had wanted to post:

Kimmitt/Senor briefing, May 20, 2004

Q And on the situation yesterday, you said that you were fairly convinced this was not what some of the Iraqis were saying, a wedding party that was hit, but -- and part of the justification was the weapons and everything else you found. But it sounds like, you know, $1,000, a few weapons are not that unusual here. Do you have other evidence that would suggest this is definite, and will there be an investigation?

GEN. KIMMITT: Well, certainly because of the interest that's been shown by the media we're going to have an investigation. Some of the allegations that have been made would cause us to go back and look at this. But it's important to understand that this operation was not something that just fell out of the sky.

We had significant intelligence which caused us to conduct a military operation into the middle of the desert, 85 kilometers south of Husaybah, al Qaim, and 25 kilometers inside from the Syrian border. Relatively barren area. We had a group of people there, not Bedouin. They were -- would appear to have been town dwellers. You saw 4x4s, jewelry. This is one of those routes that we have watched for a long period of time as a place where foreign fighters and smugglers come into this country.

We have consistently talked inside this forum about the foreign fighter flow. This was clearly, in our -- the intelligence that we had suggested that this was a foreign fighter "rat line," as we call them, one of the way stations. We conducted military operations down there last night. The ground force that swept through the objective found a significant amount of material and intelligence which validated that attack. And we are satisfied at this point that the intelligence that led us there was validated by what we found on the ground, and it was not that there was a wedding party going on.

~SNIP~

(different reporter, with the WaPo)

Q For General Kimmitt, sir. There was footage shown on Associated Press Television Network yesterday that seemed to depict civilians who were purportedly killed in the incident near the Syrian border. Is the military disputing that any civilians were killed? There were graphic images of dead children. Does the military have a position on whether these children were killed in this incident?

GEN. KIMMITT: The persons that we had on the ground did not find -- and they were on the ground for an extensive period of time -- they did not find any dead children among the casualties of that engagement.

~SNIP~

I heard this briefing live yesterday and noted on a thread immediately the last part about not finding any dead children. Then I heard the rest of the day about how there were children killed during this operation and NOT ONE media outlet reported what Kimmitt said here.

That's why I wanted this transcript.

Unbelieveable.

12 posted on 05/21/2004 10:51:52 AM PDT by cyncooper