The New Band of Brothers

Weekly Standard ^ | 06/19/2006 | Michael Fumento

[Fighting Irish]

TERRORIST-INFESTED RAMADI in the wild west of Iraq is the meanest place in the country, "the graveyard of the Americans" as graffiti around town boast. When military public affairs asked where I wanted to be embedded, I told them, "the redder, the better" (red means hostile). So they packed me off to eastern Ramadi with the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

---snip---

To most of the media, Baghdad is where Iraq begins and ends. So naturally, they think Baghdad is the most dangerous part of the country. Wrong. "The sheer scale of violence in Ramadi is astounding," wrote AP's Todd Pitman after spending time with several units there. Pitman arrived the same night I did. "One recent coalition tally of 'significant acts'--roadside bombs, attacks, exchanges of fire--indicated that out of 43 reported in Iraq on a single day, 27 occurred in Ramadi and its environs," he wrote in a dispatch. Track the weekly butcher's bill for all of Iraq and you'll often find that a third to a half of U.S. combat deaths are in this one city about a third the size of Baghdad.

---snip---

There are four minarets within sniping distance of Corregidor, and the gentlemen in these places of worship regularly shoot at the raised observation posts around the camp and sometimes into the camp itself. Mortars as large as 122mm smash into Corregidor on average every other day. I saw a steel container (the kind carried on flatbed trucks and train cars) hit by a mortar; it looked like an aluminum can blown up with a cherry bomb. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) pop up like mushrooms, and vehicle-borne IEDs delivered by young men determined to get at those 72 perpetually renewing virgins are also a constant threat.

[Fighting Irish]

Michael Fumento (U.S. Army Airborne, 1978-82), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, has been embedded twice in Al Anbar.

[SittinYonder]

It's also the capital of Al Anbar province and a favorite stomping ground of al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi until two 500 lb. bombs blew apart his hideout last Wednesday.

Was that just last Wednesday? It seems like a couple of months ago. How time flies. ...

Anyway, thanks for posting, good reading.

[LachlanMinnesota]

Assuming all this to be true, what should be the US response?

[butternut_squash_bisque]

***Remove*** the town and all it's occupants from the map, completely and totally.

[LachlanMinnesota]

Or remove the town from the ground and leave the town on the map.

What do the Iraqi government think we should do? Nothing?

Why do we sit around and take hits without doing anything to take out the vermin?

[bassmaner]

Dateline of this story is 6/19 - two months ago. It seems like most of the violence *now* is centered around Baghdad: I wonder if Zarqawi's demise has played a role in the apparent shift of the terrorists' focus.

[LachlanMinnesota]

Missed that...thanks!

[RushingWater]

There are four minarets within sniping distance of Corregidor, and the gentlemen in these places of worship regularly shoot at the raised observation posts around the camp and sometimes into the camp itself.

Now I would pay to see video of our snipers knocking some of these minaret posted shooters down. I wonder if we are even doing that?

[tcostell]

Simple solution to that.. announce to the town that the next time shots are fired from the minarets they will be answered by howitzers. Include the usual psyops noise about how we sincerely hope it isn't necessary to destroy any historic or reverential sites blah blah blah.. then level the building at the next attack, and build them a new mosque with a lower profile.

[nj_pilot]

Good stuff. Here's the article with pictures from his blog:
http://www.fumento.com/military/ramadi.html

[Mister Da]

"There are four minarets within sniping distance of Corregidor, and the gentlemen in these places of worship regularly shoot at the raised observation posts around the camp and sometimes into the camp itself."

It is outrageous that these mosques are allowed to remain standing. Or any other building that houses terrorists or their weapons. Not one drop of our soldiers' blood is worth this nonsense. This is not a winning tactic, it is appeasement.

Camp Corregidor sounds too much like the fire bases of old, with their search & destroy missions & no go restricted areas in the city. This is "hearts & minds" bullsh@t.

Our policy should be that ALL buildings containing terrorists or their weapons is subject to instant destruction or bulldozing - our choice. The people of Iraq, Afghanistan, & Lebanon, etc., need to be told clearly & often that if they are in close proximity to a terrorist or his weapons, their lives & property are in imminent danger. We will no longer refrain from attacking the terrorists because of so-called "innocent civilians".

[Fighting Irish]

[Billthedrill]

Great read, thanks for posting. I'm sure people more qualified than I made the decision but I can't help but feel that had we publicly obliterated a mosque early on in this thing as an example much less of this would be happening. There has to be some middle ground between giving the enemy a propaganda victory as a destroyer of holy places and giving him a free sanctuary.

[JoeGar]

Excellent article.