Posted on 12/08/2004 6:39:42 AM PST by TexKat
A US soldier shakes hands with an Iraqi boy in Baghdad's Kadesia district Wednesday Dec 8, 2004. US troops searched houses for weapons in the neighborhood Wednesday. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Navy Surgeons in Iraq Wrangle With Trauma
9 minutes ago
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - Doctors with Bravo Surgical Company — known as the "Cheaters of Death" — fight their own quiet battles every day against the horrifying wounds of war.
"These injuries we never see at home," said one of the surgeons, Dr. Matthew Camuso of Los Angeles. "I mostly treated gunshot wounds and stabbing, but these injuries don't compare — you just don't have people blown up back home."
Dr. Michael Mazurek, an orthopedic surgeon and trauma specialist from Philadelphia, said he has seen "some horrific injuries" in the 90 days since coming to Iraq (news - web sites). "The tremendous force of the IED can devastate a torso," he says, referring to a roadside bomb.
As quickly as they can, the doctors of Bravo Company patch up U.S. soldiers who are often treated first at the scene of their injury by mobile doctors with backpack kits. Then, the wounded are quickly flown to military hospitals in Europe or to the United States if they are severely injured.
"What we saw as the most lifesaving factor was getting the wounded to us as soon as possible," said Dr. Kenneth Kelleher, the 58-year-old Navy captain who is company chief. "Then, it's all down to basic surgery, stop the bleeding, close holes and bowel — we basically work to save life over limb."
They work in a single-story concrete building that is deceptively austere. This Navy combat hospital houses two complete surgeries, with three operating tables, a 20-bed ward and state-of-the-art equipment, including digital X-ray, a well-stocked pharmacy and a laboratory complete with blood bank freezers.
The scene, once one of fierce urban warfare that lasted for a week in Iraq's former insurgent stronghold, is now quiet.
But during the most intense combat in the battle for Fallujah and in the mop-up military operations that followed, the hospital received about 800 patients — over 50 a day, Kelleher said. That compares with the earlier Oct. 17 record, when Kelleher's team treated 16 patients from three separate attacks in the area.
Mazurek says 10 surgeries in a single day of the battle were a personal record.
During Fallujah's urban combat, there were far fewer wounds from roadside bombs than are suffered elsewhere in Iraq, and far more gunshot wounds to arms and legs as Marines clashed house-to-house with holed-up insurgents.
By the time the chaos had ended, more than 50 Marines and eight Iraqi soldiers had been killed in the battle that U.S. military says also claimed the lives of 1,600 insurgents. Bravo Surgical also treated over 50 wounded Iraqi soldiers who fought alongside U.S. troops, as well as about 50 insurgents.
Combat hospitals, with front-line lifesaving crews such as Kelleher's, emerged from the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites), Somalia and other Marine engagements. From their experience at the operating table, doctors learned they had to treat the wounded in those critical first minutes — what's called the "Golden Hour" — so getting them off the battlefield fast was of paramount importance.
That practice in Iraq is one reason for the 90 percent survival rate of U.S. soldiers, the highest in any war.
But this war is seeing more severe injuries and amputees than any other war, too. Mazurek, 36, says the toughest decision for him is whether a limb is salvageable.
"We are better at recovering limbs than we were 20 years ago simply because of the techniques, because we are generally better at what we do and the approach to 'mangled extremity' is different," he says. On the other hand, "a U.S. soldier has a better chance at getting the latest prosthesis, adequate rehabilitation than any other."
In other cases, there are no choices for the doctors to make.
"Unfortunately, it's the injuries on the battlefield that mostly select who is to live and who is not — those who die are mostly those who are immediately killed in action," Kelleher said.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041208/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_battlefield_hospital&cid=540&ncid=1480
In this photo released by the US Navy, Petty Officer 3rd Class Jose Ramirez, a corpsman with 1st Force Service Support Group, Bravo Surgical Company, and native of San Antonio, Texas, and Petty Officer 2nd Class Danielle T. Tutongillette, a corpsman with 1st FSSG, Bravo Surgical Co. and native of San Diego, discuss an Iraqi Intervention Force patient's status at Bravo Surgical on Camp Fallujah, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2004. (AP Photo/US Navy)
Navy Surgeons in Iraq Wrangle With Trauma
By KATARINA KRATOVAC, Associated Press Writer
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - Doctors with Bravo Surgical Company — known as the "Cheaters of Death" — fight their own quiet battles every day against the horrifying wounds of war.
"These injuries we never see at home," said one of the surgeons, Dr. Matthew Camuso of Los Angeles. "I mostly treated gunshot wounds and stabbing, but these injuries don't compare — you just don't have people blown up back home."
Dr. Michael Mazurek, an orthopedic surgeon and trauma specialist from Philadelphia, said he has seen "some horrific injuries" in the 90 days since coming to Iraq. "The tremendous force of the IED can devastate a torso," he says, referring to a roadside bomb.
As quickly as they can, the doctors of Bravo Company patch up U.S. soldiers who are often treated first at the scene of their injury by mobile doctors with backpack kits. Then, the wounded are quickly flown to military hospitals in Europe or to the United States if they are severely injured.
"What we saw as the most lifesaving factor was getting the wounded to us as soon as possible," said Dr. Kenneth Kelleher, the 58-year-old Navy captain who is company chief. "Then, it's all down to basic surgery, stop the bleeding, close holes and bowel — we basically work to save life over limb."
They work in a single-story concrete building that is deceptively austere. This Navy combat hospital houses two complete surgeries, with three operating tables, a 20-bed ward and state-of-the-art equipment, including digital X-ray, a well-stocked pharmacy and a laboratory complete with blood bank freezers.
The scene, once one of fierce urban warfare that lasted for a week in Iraq's former insurgent stronghold, is now quiet.
But during the most intense combat in the battle for Fallujah and in the mop-up military operations that followed, the hospital received about 800 patients — over 50 a day, Kelleher said. That compares with the earlier Oct. 17 record, when Kelleher's team treated 16 patients from three separate attacks in the area.
Mazurek says 10 surgeries in a single day of the battle were a personal record.
During Fallujah's urban combat, there were far fewer wounds from roadside bombs than are suffered elsewhere in Iraq, and far more gunshot wounds to arms and legs as Marines clashed house-to-house with holed-up insurgents.
By the time the chaos had ended, more than 50 Marines and eight Iraqi soldiers had been killed in the battle that U.S. military says also claimed the lives of 1,600 insurgents. Bravo Surgical also treated over 50 wounded Iraqi soldiers who fought alongside U.S. troops, as well as about 50 insurgents.
Combat hospitals, with front-line lifesaving crews such as Kelleher's, emerged from the 1991 Gulf War, Somalia and other Marine engagements. From their experience at the operating table, doctors learned they had to treat the wounded in those critical first minutes — what's called the "Golden Hour" — so getting them off the battlefield fast was of paramount importance.
That practice in Iraq is one reason for the 90 percent survival rate of U.S. soldiers, the highest in any war.
But this war is seeing more severe injuries and amputees than any other war, too. Mazurek, 36, says the toughest decision for him is whether a limb is salvageable.
"We are better at recovering limbs than we were 20 years ago simply because of the techniques, because we are generally better at what we do and the approach to 'mangled extremity' is different," he says. On the other hand, "a U.S. soldier has a better chance at getting the latest prosthesis, adequate rehabilitation than any other."
In other cases, there are no choices for the doctors to make.
"Unfortunately, it's the injuries on the battlefield that mostly select who is to live and who is not — those who die are mostly those who are immediately killed in action," Kelleher said.
A new FR meaning for the word (bump) Gucho. Posts #41 and #42.
"A new FR meaning for the word (bump) Gucho. Posts #41 and #42."
:) oh well
First I have heard of a number that large!
U.S. soldiers on the scene carry into the lobby of the Sheraton hotel an incapacitated Iraqi man who suffered heart pain when a group of Iraqi insurgents in a car attacked security personnel guarding the Palestine and Sheraton Hotel compound minutes earlier, in Baghdad, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2004. According to witnesses several attackers were wounded and captured by Iraqi security forces before the attackers could flee the scene. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
US marines stand guard at building they are stationed at in the restive city of Fallujah, 50 kms west of Baghdad.(AFP/Mehdi Fedouach)
A picture released by the US army shows Two Marines with Bravo Company, Battalion Landing Team, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, ascending a staircase to search the second floor of a house while conducting a cordon-and-search mission through the town of Jurf al-Sakhr, south of Baghdad.(AFP/US Army-HO)
An Iraqi man walks past posters praising the police in Baghdad. Violence continued to simmer on the ground with at least one policeman killed in an attack by armed men against a police station in Samarra, north of Baghdad, and three people wounded in a bomb blast in the Iraqi capital.(AFP/Sabah Arar)
A Palestinian Red Crescent worker pauses in agency's pharmacy in Baghdad, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2004. US forces raided Palestinian Red Crescent offices Tuesday night and arrested ten people. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
U.S. Army Spc Thomas Wilson, left, speaks to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, not pictured, during Rumsfeld's visit to Camp Udeira, 120 km (74 miles) north of Kuwait City, on Wednesday, Dec.8, 2004. Wilson, of the 278th Regimental Combat Team that is comprised mainly of citizen soldiers of the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked Rumsfeld why vehicle armor is still in short supply, nearly three years after the war in Iraq began. (AP Photo/Gustavo Ferrari)
Marines in Fallujah 'Get By' With Armor
By KATARINA KRATOVAC Associated Press Writer
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) -- Marines patrolling the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah - some in open Humvees - say they've had some close calls, but "get by well" with the vehicle and body armor they have.
"I think the armor we have for the vehicles is getting better and our body armor is OK, I have nothing against it," Sgt. Aaron D'Amico said Wednesday.
Told about complaints from disgruntled soldiers who told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld earlier Wednesday they lacked armored vehicles and other equipment, D'Amico said: "I'd definitely opt for higher production of armor but the Marines get by well with what we have."
D'Amico, 24, of Cleveland, Ohio, said his unit, the 1st Battalion of the 8th Marine Regiment, received new, upgraded vehicle armor a year ago, with Kevlar-protected seats. D'Amico's only complaint is that the open-roof Humvee provides no protection at the back.
The armor the Marines receive is "usually leftovers from the Army, the Army usually gets the better stuff," he added.
In November, U.S. deaths in Iraq reached 135, equaling the all-time high previously reached in April. Hundreds more were wounded. At least 54 deaths occurred during the Marine-led assault on Fallujah.
D'Amico said his closest call occurred four months ago in the town of Haditha in central Iraq, when a roadside bomb blew up by the side of his vehicle.
The blast and flying shrapnel nicked the side armor of the Humvee door but injured no one inside.
D'Amico said it was not just the vehicle armor that saved them, but also the bomb-makers' lack of skill in planting the device too deep to cause serious damage.
Cpl. Adam Golden, 21, of New York, agreed the armor they have is serving them well, but said he would prefer "castled-in armor," especially armor over the Humvee's open canopy.
"Our body armor stops appropriate rounds and it works great to save lives," added Golden. "There are always places you could get hit, such as on the sides of your chest or in the armpits. I know a lot of guys who got hit there."
He believes such body armor is now being designed but has not yet reached the troops.
Cpl. Joshua Munns said it isn't easy to make the best armor.
"It has to be tested against the heaviest weapons infantry would encounter," said Munns, 21, of Redding, Calif.
"The vehicle floor Kevlar, for example is not meant to stop an explosion but prevents the vehicle floor from breaking apart on the inside," Munns added.
Asked whether he would prefer a closed Humvee with bulletproof windows, Munns said "it's a yes-and-no answer."
"An enclosed vehicle reduces your visibility and if you are not able to see an attack you might as well have no armor at all," he said. "It needs to be a fine balance between visibility and protection."
Munns said he prefers mobility over the weight of extra body armor.
The three Marines agree that the most exposed person is their gunner in the turret.
"He has to think about the bigger stuff, he is up there, more exposed than any of us," Munns noted.
On the other side of the base, Capt. Joe Winslow, 36, of Dallas, said it is not so much the armor but the tactics of the Marines that has been a lifesaver.
"It's the aggressive convoy procedures, paying attention to the basics, vigilance by the gunner and the driver," said Winslow.
Winslow said he had just seen footage of the soldiers' exchange with Rumsfeld on television and was "surprised" because the armor we have is "top notch."
"I don't know why they said what they said. I can't speak for another person," he said.
"Every time I go outside the base, I am aware that what keeps me safe is not only in the equipment I have but in the mentality of being a Marine," said Gunnery Sgt. Mike Ritchie.
Love that report!
Iraq, Jordan see threat to election from Iran:
Leaders warn against forming religious state:
WASHINGTON - The leaders of Iraq and Jordan warned yesterday that Iran is trying to influence the Iraqi elections scheduled for Jan. 30 to create an Islamic government that would dramatically shift the geopolitical balance between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in the Middle East.
Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar charged that Iran is coaching candidates and political parties sympathetic to Tehran and pouring "huge amounts of money" into the campaign to produce a Shiite-dominated government similar to Iran's.
Jordanian King Abdullah said that more than 1 million Iranians have crossed the 910-mile border into Iraq, many to vote in the election — with the encouragement of the Iranian government. "I'm sure there's a lot of people, a lot of Iranians in there that will be used as part of the polls to influence the outcome," he said in an interview.
• More news on Iraq
The king also charged that Iranians are paying salaries and providing welfare to unemployed Iraqis to build pro-Iranian public sentiment. Some Iranians, he added, have been trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards and are members of militias that could fuel trouble in Iraq after the election.
"It is in Iran's vested interest to have an Islamic republic of Iraq ... and therefore the involvement you're getting by the Iranians is to achieve a government that is very pro-Iran," Abdullah said.
A new 'crescent'?
If pro-Iran parties or politicians dominate the new Iraqi government, he said, a new "crescent" of dominant Shiite movements or governments stretching from Iran into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon could emerge, alter the traditional balance of power between the two main Islamic sects and pose new challenges to U.S. interests and allies.
"If Iraq goes Islamic republic, then, yes, we've opened ourselves to a whole set of new problems that will not be limited to the borders of Iraq. I'm looking at the glass half-full, and let's hope that's not the case. But strategic planners around the world have got to be aware that is a possibility," Abdullah added.
Iran and Iraq have Shiite majorities. But modern Iraq, formed after World War I, has been ruled by its Sunni minority. Syria is ruled by the minority Allawites, an offshoot of Shiism. Shiites are the largest of 17 recognized sects in Lebanon, and Hezbollah is a major Shiite political party, with the only active militia.
Abdullah, a prominent Sunni leader, said the creation of a new Shiite crescent would particularly destabilize Gulf countries with Shiite populations. "Even Saudi Arabia is not immune from this. It would be a major problem. And then that would propel the possibility of a Shiite-Sunni conflict even more, as you're taking it out of the borders of Iraq," the king said.
Complicated ties
Iran has bonds with Iraq through their Shiite populations. Thousands of Iranians make pilgrimages to the holiest Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala. Iraq's most prominent Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, is Iranian-born and speaks Arabic with a Persian accent. Yet Iran and Iraq fought a brutal eight-year war with more than a million casualties.
Iran has faced charges in the past of meddling in Iraq, but with the election approaching, Iraqi, U.S. and Arab officials have begun to make specific accusations and issue warnings about the potential impact.
"Unfortunately, time is proving, and the situation is proving, beyond any doubt that Iran has very obvious interference in our business — a lot of money, a lot of intelligence activities and almost interfering daily in business and many [provincial] governates, especially in the southeast side of Iraq," Yawar said in an interview with Washington Post editors and reporters.
The interim Iraqi president, a Sunni leader from a tribe with Sunnis and Shiites, said Iraq's first democratic government must reject pressure to inject religion into politics. "We cannot have a sectarian or religious government," he said. "We really will not accept a religious state in Iraq. We haven't seen a model that succeeded."
The question of Iraq's political orientation — secular or religious — will come to a head when Iraq begins writing a new constitution next spring. Jordan's king said he had started to raise a "red flag" about the dangers of mixing church and state.
Abdullah said the United States had communicated its concern to Iran through third parties, although he predicted a showdown. "There's going to be some sort of clash at one point or another," he said. "We hope it's just a clash of words and politics and not a clash of civilizations or peoples on the ground. We will know a bit better how it will play out after the [Iraqi] election."
In Baghdad, interim Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih warned neighboring governments that Iraq is losing patience with them for not doing more to stop the insurgency, which undermines the prospects for peaceful elections.
"There is evidence indicating that some groups in some neighboring countries are playing a direct role in the killing of the Iraqi people, and such a thing is not acceptable to us," Salih said. "We have reached a stage in which, if we do not see a real response from those countries, then we are obliged to take a decisive stance."
Violence continues to generate skepticism about whether legitimate elections can be held in two months. After talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he "cannot imagine" how elections can go forward.
Push for timely elections
But after meeting with President Bush on Monday, Yawar and Abdullah said they are committed to pressing fellow Sunnis to drop threats to boycott the elections and move quickly to register candidates.
The Jordanian monarch said sitting out the election would only hurt Sunnis. "My advice to the Sunnis in Iraq, and that I will make public, is to get engaged, get into the system and do the best that you can come January 30," he said. "If you don't and you lose out, then you only have yourselves to blame."
The Iraqi president said there is no point in delaying elections, as Sunni leaders have urged. "Extending the election date will just prolong our agony," he said. He predicted Sunnis will ultimately participate, adding that many of the same leaders agitating against the Jan. 30 date have begun preparing their own campaigns.
Yawar said he is putting together a balanced, "all-Iraqi list" of candidates that would cross sectarian lines, in apparent contrast to the Shiite-dominated candidate slate.
A civil engineer educated at George Washington University, he expressed hope that U.S. troops could begin withdrawing from Iraq by the end of 2005 if Iraqi authorities train enough of their own troops.
"When we have our security forces qualified and capable of taking the job, then we will start seeing the beginning of decreasing forces, and that's in hopefully a year's time," he said. But he would not indicate when he hoped the last U.S. soldiers would leave. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters this week he expected the U.S. military to withdraw within four years.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6674031/
The New Seriousness How to read the Bush administration's commitment to Iraq.
by Tom Donnelly 12/08/2004 12:00:00 AM
YOU DON'T KNOW what you don't know. And in war, you really don't know. At war in the Middle East, you never really know.
Apparently, President Bush's reelection has allowed his lieutenants to embrace this certain uncertainty in regard to the situation in Iraq. The administration's actions and rhetoric over the past month have been the most realistic and sensible since before the invasion in March 2003. For perhaps the first time, the administration is broadly acknowledging and acting as if the American commitment to Iraq and the region is truly a generational one, or even longer.
Begin with the president himself. Meeting at the White House this week with Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar, President Bush reiterated his commitment to holding elections in Iraq next January 30, despite the accelerating efforts by the insurgents to derail the process. At the same time, he warned that "the American people must understand that democracy just doesn't happen overnight. It is a process. It is an evolution. . . . It takes a while for democracy to take hold. And this is a major first step in a society which enables people to express their beliefs and their opinions."
This message was well tailored to the meeting with Yawar, the senior Sunni leader in the current Iraqi government. The length and ferocity of the war in Iraq will largely be measured by the willingness of the Sunni minority, for decades the politically dominant faction, to accept a diminution of power. Yawar strongly backed the Bush line: "Right now we are faced with the armies of darkness who have no objective but to undermine the political process and incite civil war in Iraq," he said. "But I want to assure the whole world that this will never, never happen." Yet he also complained that there was "unfairness [in] calling [the insurgents] Sunni insurgents--these are not Sunni."
President Yawar is right to try to reclaim the Sunni mantle from the insurgents, but it's likely to be a long, hard slog. General John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, made it clear that he has no illusions that backward-looking Sunni leaders in Iraq and in the region are indeed the problem. Leading a group of journalists through Iraq, Abizaid made the crucial link between the traditional Sunni power structure, in this case the Baath party remnants, and the Sunni revolutionaries, in Iraq represented by the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "Baathists seem to think that they can temporarily make an alliance of convenience with Zarqawi and al Qaeda," Abizaid told Bradley Graham of the Washington Post. "We have no illusions about the hardest core of this enemy," Abizaid said to Graham's Post colleague, columnist David Ignatius. The Baathist and fundamentalist rejectionists "will have to be killed or captured."
With the clarity and bluntness of a soldier, Abizaid captured the administration's new message: "It is all about staying the course. No military effort that anyone can make against us is going to be able to throw us out of this region."
The lone note of uncertainty has been sounded by--surprise!--Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Having survived the cabinet shake-up and foreign-policy purge of the post-election period, Rumsfeld declared that he "enthusiastically" accepted President Bush's request that he stay on as Defense chief. He looked forward to continuing the process of military transformation, including reposturing U.S. forces abroad, and then said he "hoped and expected" U.S. forces to be out of Iraq by the end of the second Bush term.
While Rumsfeld's real commitment to Iraq and the Middle East has long been one of the unanswered questions of administration policy, it might be a mistake to read too much into his remarks. For one, the secretary, like Buddha, always speaks cryptically. Like Bill Clinton, his purpose in speaking publicly is to hide in plain sight; you've got to know what the meaning of "is" is when parsing Rumsfeld-speak. In this case, Abizaid probably provided better insight into the meaning of "out" of Iraq: the general says the role of U.S. forces will change to focus less on direct combat and more on training and building the new Iraqi security structure.
And Rumsfeld is correct to concentrate his efforts on building a set of military institutions that will be appropriate to the long-term fight in the greater Middle East and elsewhere. Rumsfeld is not the real problem with Bush administration policy--the problem has been, and remains, the unwillingness of the White House to increase defense spending sufficiently and to enlarge U.S. ground forces, especially the Army. This has much more to do with macro political judgments and the president's second-term agenda than anything inside the Pentagon. If told to rebuild the Army, Rumsfeld and Army chief of staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker would build the right kind of force.
Indeed, next year's federal budget and the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review will prove the ultimate signals of this administration's new seriousness. If the president really accepts that victory in the Middle East won't happen overnight, then he needs to create a defense establishment capable of winning a long war.
Thank you
Jordan's king says troops tracking al-Zarqawi 'getting close'
Wednesday, December 8, 2004 Posted: 0317 GMT (1117 HKT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Jordanian King Abdullah II said forces in Iraq are "getting close" to capturing terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"He's slipped through the net once or twice where we got closer to him than he would have liked," Abdullah told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday. "The Iraqis, Jordanians and coalition forces are working very hard to track him down -- and we're getting close."
The king said he based his assessment on "hard intelligence."
Al-Zarqawi is the Jordanian-born militant wanted for fueling the insurgency in Iraq and in connection with the beheadings of several Western hostages.
The king said the search is ongoing and al-Zarqawi is a difficult man to track "in very difficult circumstances."
Abdullah described al-Zarqawi as constantly on the move.
He also said al-Zarqawi is thought to be inside Iraq after fleeing Falluja ahead of the latest U.S.-led assault on the city.
"He's under pressure," Abdullah said.
The United States has offered a $25 million reward for the capture or killing of al-Zarqawi.
He is accused of leading a terrorist network inside Iraq that has carried out numerous attacks against Iraqi civilians and U.S. military personnel and has kidnapped and beheaded numerous hostages.
His group changed its name from Unification and Jihad to the Base of Jihad after al-Zarqawi recently pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden, leader of al Qaeda, which is Arabic for "the base."
Abdullah said there is a link between al-Zarqawi and al Qaeda, but described it as a "loose association."
Abdullah has been in Washington this week, and met with President Bush on Monday.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/12/07/jordan.zarqawi/
Thank you Be strong America good country! 
Keith and Carolyn Maupin, parents of Army Reserve Spc. Keith ``Matt'' Maupin, help June Bailey, right, pack food, supplies and Christmas gifts into boxes at the Yellow Ribbon Support Center Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2004 near Batavia, Ohio, that are to be shipped to troops in Iraq 
Tue Dec 7, 7:59 PM ET Op/Ed - Ted Rall By Ted Rall
A Glorious Profile in Courage and Selflessness
IRAQI JIHAD NEWS SERVICE--Pathim Tili Al-Aman has a life any Iraqi would envy. He is 28 and holds both a M.B.A. and a Ph.D from the prestigious Cairo University. Until a month ago, he ran the futures desk at the new Baghdad Stock Exchange, a gig that yielded a salary over $400,000 a year. He shares a sprawling luxury apartment, furnished with rare cacti and Babylonian artifacts he acquired a year ago and which enjoys a panoramic view of Baghdad from the Tigris to the Green Zone and back again, with four wives and eight sons. His second wife Nadia, famous as the prettiest girl in their upscale Mansoor neighborhood, still turns heads from behind her abaya as she zips past local checkpoints in one of the couple's three new Mercedes.
"Pathim has a bright future. He can do whatever he wants," says Kamal Abbas, a childhood friend. "Not only is he a brilliant businessman, fashion model, and mathematician, he's the most promising football [soccer] player this country has ever produced." He was offered a 3.6 million dinar, three-year contract to play for the Karkh sports club. He's a hard worker, a devoted family man and an award-winning chef. Everyone who meets him describes him as a stunningly handsome, virile, hard-driving man with a deeply thoughtful, intellectual streak. Though Tili Al-Aman describes himself as a "lapsed Sunni," Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani relies upon his encyclopedic knowledge of Islamic legal history to settle intractable ecclesiastical controversies and to settle conflicts between warring tribal factions.
But that's all in the past. Pathim has enlisted in the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal Jihad, known since October as Al Qaeda in Iraq. He will soon report as an ordinary grunt insurgent to a remote camp in southeastern Kurdistan to learn basic guerilla warfare tactics from agents of Ansar al-Islam. He will receive $70 a month to cover food, plus $500 for every coalition soldier he kills. Like any other resistance fighter, he will supply his own Kalashnikov rifle and rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Under normal circumstances, Tili Al-Aman could look forward to a life of luxury and glamor, his future assured. Instead he has chosen the harder but more satisfying path of sacrifice and hardship. And with thousands of anti-coalition soldiers already martyred, there's a real chance he could leave his family fatherless and destitute.
"People ask 'Why would a guy give up everything to plant roadside bombs in the trash?'," said Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, chief JTJ commander. "The answer is, he's a leader. He doesn't want some other man doing his fighting for him."
"Sure, I'm successful. And I could make a lot of money playing football. But none of that seemed important after we were attacked on 3-25," said Tili Al-Aman, referring to the start of the 2003 American invasion. "My grandfather died defending the nation from Britain in 1941. My father fought alongside il-Za'im to depose the puppet Hashemite monarchy in 1958. What have I done?"
While many of his peers wallow in self-indulgence, Pathim Tili Al-Aman is a genuine patriot, selfless and disciplined, a man whose band of brothers is his top priority. "We are at war," he says. "Wars need leaders. And that's what I am, a leader."
This is the cry of the pure at heart, naturally repugnant to the liberal kubba-nibbling cultural elitists who smile and wave at passing troops of the forces of imperialist American oppression. Such effete poindexters see no irony in mocking the men whose resistance protects their right to issue such utterances, without whom they would probably die screaming in a torture chamber at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib.
Consider Malik Morali, the comedian-documentarian who derides Tili Al-Aman's heroism as "another ignorant raghead willing to get shot up like Swiss cheese on the off chance his I.E.D. will cost a Hummer a flat tire...stooo-pid." Or Fariz Farez, a "pundit" whose newspaper serves the U.S. puppet Allawi. "Risking your life for a bunch of Koran-thumping woman haters and oil-stealing Baathist thugs hardly makes you a hero," sneered Farez in his syndicated column. "It makes you a sap."
Thank Allah we have more men like Tili Al-Aman, who are willing to fight and even die for our freedom, than cowards like Morali.
UPDATE: Al Qaeda will honor fallen mujahid Pathim Tili Al-Aman, killed in combat defending Fallujah. A $1,000 martyrdom remittance will be paid to each of his widows. Tili Al-Aman was lauded in a special Internet videotape recorded by Sheikh Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) for intentionally drawing infidel fire after he was struck by a bullet, allowing his comrades to escape their safehouse. "He gave up millions of dinars to join the resistance," noted bin Laden. "Anyone who doubts that he's an Iraqi hero is a traitor." Sheikh al-Zarqawi has posthumously awarded Tili Al-Aman the Silver Crescent for his final act of bravery.
FURTHER UPDATE: Al Qaeda in Iraq has issued a terse statement indicating that Pathim Tili Al-Aman, the young businessman and budding soccer star lionized as a national hero who joined the insurgency to fight American terrorism, actually died from "friendly fire," having been shot by a fellow jihadi. Asked whether Tili Al-Aman's Silver Crescent award would be revoked, Sheikh al-Zarqawi reminded Iraqis that he remains "a national hero whom every patriotic young man should emulate."
Great pics - thank you :)
U.S. Navy (news - web sites) corpsman Jessica Ross checks the heart rate of a wounded Iraqi boy at the Surgical/Shock Trauma Platoon in the military camp Taqaddum, near the western Iraqi city of Falluja, in this photograph released on December 8, 2004 
U.S. President George W. Bush speaks to thousands of Marines during his visit to Camp Pendleton, California, December 7, 2004. Bush thanked the Marines for their service in Iraq
America News
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041208/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iran_1
U.S. Warns Iran Against Iraq Interference
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration cautioned Iran on Wednesday against trying to influence the outcome of Iraq (news - web sites)'s election, reacting to fears that Tehran is trying to produce a Shiite-dominated Islamic government in Baghdad.
Bush talked about Iran in meetings Monday with Jordan's King Abdullah II and Ghazi al-Yawer, the interim Iraqi president, both Sunni Muslims.
Iran and Syria joined other nations at an international conference on Iraq last month at the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh in pledging to contribute to Iraq's stability and to prevent terrorists from coming into Iraq, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. The communique also called on all parties to tighten border controls.
"We expect them to abide by that commitment," McClellan said.
"Iraq has talked to Iran about these issues," the spokesman said. "We've made our views very clear to Iran, as well as others, and we continue to call on Iran to act in a responsible way and be helpful as the Iraqi people move forward on building a brighter future."
Abdullah and al-Yawer accuse Shiite Muslim-dominated Iran of trying to influence the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq, where the country's majority Shiites are expected to perform strongly.
Abdullah told The Washington Post in an interview published Wednesday that more than 1 million Iranians have entered Iraq, many to vote, and said they were being encouraged by the Iranian government.
Iran has said it has no interest in fomenting instability in Iraq and it tries to block any infiltration into Iraq by insurgents — while noting that the borders are hard to police.
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