Many US casualties in Nassiriya battle; Footage of POWs, including woman, shown on Iraqi TV

Al Bawaba ^ | 23-03-2003, 16:47

[Lessismore]

On Sunday afternoon, the Qatar-based television al Jazeera broadcast Iraqi TV, showing a videotape of at least 10 US POWs, including one female soldier, and a room with some 15 bodies of US troops. The live broadcast included also a footage of a battle field area in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya with additional corpses of US soldiers as well as struck military equipment.

The videotape has also shown how the Iraqis investigate the American POWs. The prisoners were questioned on air and gave their names, military identification numbers and home towns.

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Air Force conceded that there were American soldiers missing, but said that there were fewer than 10 troops unaccounted for in southern Iraq.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned Sunday it was possible that Iraqi forces had taken U.S. prisoners, saying there were unaccounted soldiers and journalists in the combat zone.

He noted that under the Geneva Conventions governing prisoners of war, "It's illegal to do things to POWs that are humiliating to those prisoners."

Earlier, it was reported that U.S. Marines battled for control of Nassiriya, taking "significant" casualties in a fight to open a route north to Baghdad, military officials said.

Reuters quoted military officials as saying the Marine battalion spearheading the fight had suffered significant casualties in the battle.

A total of 11 U.S. soldiers were captured after taking a wrong turn, and 50 military personnel have been wounded in the massive firefight in Nassiriya, ABCNEWS reported Sunday.

According to the report, 11 soldiers, maintenance workers, had taken a wrong turn outside the city on a mission to carry out repair work. They were traveling in a column of vehicles that came under heavy fire, including from an Iraqi tank. The capture was observed by other forces nearby.

The firefight at Nassiriya blocked an advance by U.S. forces, who had earlier reported securing two key bridgeheads to enable them to cross the Euphrates and strike northwards toward the Iraqi capital.

Reuters said there was heavy U.S. helicopter traffic over the area, and that hundreds of U.S. military trucks and armored personnel carriers had stopped their advance.

Iraqi Information Minister Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf told a news conference in Baghdad that foreign invaders headed to Nassiriya had been "taught a lesson they will never forget." "We have placed them in a quagmire from which they can never emerge except dead," he said. (Albawaba.com)

[jwalsh07]

Disgraceful.

[LowOiL]

Heck, I don't drink, but think I will join you in this one.

[Neets]

Yes...LOL *blush*

I tried to warn her with my tag line, but what can ya do with the hard headed?

[wimpycat]

The Mistress of Tact tripped over her own tongue one last time.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Firstly, there is NO WORLD COMMUNITY. Secondly, it is and has been for the last 160 years, permissible to capture, court martial, and shoot armed civilians who are fighting. They are called Frank Trailleurs(if my spelling is correct). Go back under your 'Objective' rock.

[Mustang]

Askel5 = Ash. He/she/it barfed all over FR threads during the Toons Impeachment. Whatever "it" is, it's just another Toon rump-swab!

Mustang sends.

[justshe]

FR's own form of Shock and Awe. VERY well executed.

[Yankee]

Hey, if you got an Islamic edumacation, you'd believe him, too. The DU assholes are sucking it up too.

[headsonpikes]

RE: Askel5

One step over the line...

[wardaddy]

And damn good riddance I think arguably 99% here would agree

[demnomo]

Idiot. Yeah, our troops have been slaughtering Iraqi surrendering soldiers and displaying their bloody bodies on TV while we question the ones lucky enough to be alive. The only Iraqi soldiers that have been photographed up close and questioned on video or in photos are those who willingly gave themselves up to Journalists before our troops got to them. None of those Iraqis soldiers looked as if they had been tortured or made to answer questions with an answer, fool. According to reporters, they were given water and food and treated under the Geneva Convention rules.

By your post, you agree with those fools who say that Bush is like Hitler for doing this to the poor Iraqi people. We should just have left them alone, you and others say. Just let Saddamn and his men do what they wish in Iraq as well as giving aid (Palestinian suicide bomber families) and comfort (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda, Abu Nidal, etc) to our enemies. If Bush is wrong and Hitler as some who oppose this war claim, than that makes our troops Nazis for carrying out his will.

You give aid and comfort to the Saddamites by your post. You have made yourself a willing pawn of Iraqi propaganda and blackmail. (See, see, if we were not in this, we would not be hurt!) As if Iraq and its allies would not see this as weakness and strike us when we were not prepared. STUFF IT, Fool.

[Petronski]

And what is a chick doing in combat? Is she a red herring that this is propaganda or do we have women on the vanguard over there?

She's no 'chick,' you moron, and judging from the photos I've seen, I'm betting she could kick your ass.

[Jesse]

"but are unconvinced that Iraq poses a credible threat to US interests, and resent the propaganda coming from Washington trying to convince us of that. There is no evidence connecting Iraq with Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and 9/11 beyond the $25K suicide bomber bounty"

Well, of course some evidence is not the same as no evidence, now, is it?

Just a few questions I have for you.

1)What do you consider a credible threat? We know, for example, that the 9/11 hijackers left evidence all over the place, but until they carried out their plan, what evidence did we have that made them a 'Credible Threat'.

2)It was in Afghanistan, a third world backward country, that the 9/11 plot was hatched with boxcutters and flying lessons, aided and abetted by the Taliban regime.

How is it then you think that Saddam Hussein, who is known to use torture, chemical weapons, assassination(including funding plot to kill George Bush Senior),who is known to fund various terrorist organizations and harbor known terrorists (including a ringleader of the group who orchestrated the Achilli Laro hijacking and murder of an American citizen, a terrorist recently killed in Iraq) is not a threat?

3)Say there is a 0.5% chance that Saddam Hussein is funding terrorists and providing them with anthrax or 100 lbs of radioactive isotopes like cobalt, strontium and iodine to to smuggle into the United States and disperse. Is that credible enough?

4) The fact is, Hussein violated the UN mandates instituted at the end of the Gulf war. If he is not a threat, why was the UN still abiding by the mandates and using weapons inspectors?

I just want to hear someone from your side tell me you know he is not a credible threat, how you know it, and what constitutes a credible threat in the face of all the information we have to the contrary.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Given our own precedent of ignoring same as well as our proceeding with this war AGAINST the wishes of many of the major signatories of that Convention, I really do wonder how it is we have the nerve to claim all due rights and privileges under that convention.

Speaking of moral capital with regard to the Armed Forces of the United States, you have none, Askel. That is one of the most vile posts you've come up with yet, to wish that on American fighting men.

[rwfromkansas]

I reported abuse on that post. It was absolutely appalling.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

I'll buy you that drink.

[rwfromkansas]

About time.