Wonder who posted this? Sort of clashes with some posts made by that person on this thread.
"there is bound to be more than a few retards in the officer corps"
Where did that come from?
Air assault spearheads push to hurt insurgency in area south of Baghdad
The 101st Airborne’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team has faced one of the toughest fights in Iraq. The Fort Campbell, Ky.-based unit has seen 31 soldiers killed since arriving here in November.
The targeted area is thick with a mix of Iraqi insurgents and foreign fighters. A Saudi Arabian man and several Iraqis were arrested last week after an Iraqi army unit found them carrying an anti-aircraft gun in their pick-up truck, officials said.
In keeping with the clear-and- hold strategy employed by U.S. troops in recent months, soldiers from the 2nd Battalion plan to set up a permanent patrol base in the village of Sadr Yusufiyah, officials said.
The insurgents’ attacks have fallen particularly heavy on the 1st-502nd’s Company B, which has lost six men and sent several others home with serious injuries since its arrival. Capt. John Goodwin, Company B commander, hopes this week’s assault will ease the daily attacks on the patrol bases and traffic checkpoints.
“We’ve kicked the hornets nest a few times already, now we are going to take a baseball bat and give it a good whack,” Goodwin said.
In Mahmudiyah, tensions were at a boiling point before Samarra mosque attack
Intelligence reports say gun-toting Shiite militiamen are roaming the city’s Sunni neighborhoods, intimidating Sunni residents, throwing them out of their homes and in some cases killing them.
On Friday morning, U.S. troops watched as dozens of trucks bearing caskets drove south from Baghdad into the city. Soldiers fear the coffins may be a method for Sunnis to discretely smuggle weapons into the region to prepare for open sectarian warfare. Traffic checkpoints run by the Iraqi army found no weapons, U.S. troops said.
In response, U.S. troops have stepped up patrols, with soldiers looking for telltale signs of sectarian aggression, such as a black flags over a Sunni mosque, indicating Shiite militias have overtaken the holy site.
Shiite militias and sectarian violence in the city are just one concern for Kunk and his battalion. Several miles to the west, troops securing farmland near the Euphrates River are battling a tenacious Sunni insurgency that has taken the lives of 14 soldiers since the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based unit arrived here about four months ago.
Buildings at the base shook Friday as American artillerymen fired large counter-battery missiles at Sunni insurgents lobbing mortar rounds at U.S.-run traffic checkpoints several miles away.
The Shiite militias operate openly in Mahmudiyah, but they carefully avoid doing so in front of U.S. forces. A network of informants tells the militants when U.S. troops are nearby, giving them time to conceal their weapons and blend into the general population, U.S. soldiers said.
No clash at all when you read the entire quote.
"Judging by the fact idiots like Wesley Clark were ever promoted to high positions, there is bound to be more than a few retards in the officer corps that think leaking to the NY Times is a good thing. Uhg. "
7 posted on 07/08/2006 8:30:18 AM PDT by pissant