WASTE THE M*****F*****s!
Posted on 04/29/2003 3:51:50 AM PDT by jjm2111
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. soldiers shot back at anti-American protesters after being fired on in a town west of Baghdad, and at least seven demonstrators were hit, a U.S. officer said Tuesday. Residents said 15 Iraqis were killed.
U.S. officials also announced that a top adviser to Saddam Hussein, who served as oil minister and earlier headed Iraq's top-secret missile program, had surrendered.
The shooting took place Monday night in the town of Fallujah, about 30 miles west of Baghdad. Though residents reported 15 deaths, Col. Arnold Bray of the 82nd Airborne Division said seven people in the crowd were hit.
Residents said the demonstration was conducted by students between the ages of 5 and 20, but Bray said some of them were armed. "Ask them which kind of schoolboys carry AK-47s," he said.
The troops were headquartered in a schoolhouse, and some of the protesters fired on the building, Bray said. The Arab television channel Al-Jazeera quoted residents as saying the troops opened fire after someone threw a rock at the school. The demonstrators reportedly were protesting U.S. troops' presence in the city.
The latest of Saddam's inner circle to be taken into custody was Amer Mohammed Rashid, who had served recently as oil minister and earlier oversaw Iraq's top-secret missile programs.
Rashid, known to U.N. weapons inspectors as the "Missile Man," turned himself in Monday. A former general with expertise in weapons delivery systems, he was ranked No. 47 on the U.S. military's list of the 55 most-wanted officials from Saddam's regime.
Rashid is married to Dr. Rihab Taha, a microbiologist known as "Dr. Germ" who was in charge of the secret Iraqi facility that weaponized anthrax and other toxic substances. She also is sought by the United States, and her house in Baghdad was raided by U.S. forces last month, but there was no word on her whereabouts.
Seeking to curtail looting and lawlessness in Baghdad, the U.S. Army announced that it will deploy up to 4,000 additional military police and infantrymen over the next 10 days.
U.S. Maj. Gen. Glenn Webster, the deputy commander of U.S. ground forces, outlined the plans prior to a meeting Tuesday with about 100 Baghdad city officials and other Iraqis to discuss the law and order problems. He said U.S. forces have detained more than 5,000 lawbreaking Iraqis, including looters, in two large holding facilities in Baghdad.
As part of the security initiative, U.S. forces are broadcasting detailed instructions to Baghdad residents. Among the directives: People cannot be in the streets from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.; government employees must return to their jobs; all members of Saddam's Baath Party must identify themselves to coalition forces; and hospitals must stay open 24 hours a day.
In London, curators from some of the world's major museums met to draft a recovery plan for Iraq's pillaged art works. Organized by the British Museum and UNESCO, the meeting drew experts from the Louvre in Paris, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, Russia's Hermitage and the Berlin Museums.
They were hearing a report from British Museum Near East curator John Curtis, who returned Monday after a week in Iraq, and from Iraqi Donny George, director of research at the looted National Museum in Baghdad.
Thousands of items, some dating more than 6,000 years, were stolen from Iraq's National Museum in Baghdad and other cultural institutions. Among the missing items are the Sacred Vase of Warka from 3200 BC. and other treasures from the Assyrian and Sumerian civilizations.
The commander of U.S.-led forces in Iraq, Gen. Tommy Franks, said Monday that his troops are making progress in efforts to recover the looted items. Over the weekend, U.S. forces began broadcasting radio announcements offering rewards for looted art.
"Over the last 96 hours we have had a whole lot of Iraqis contact our people up in Iraq and say actually we know where a great many of these artifacts are," Franks said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press from his command headquarters in Qatar.
Other U.S. military officials said Tuesday that the United States has moved a regional air operations center to Qatar from Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was visiting the Prince Sultan base as part of a swing through the region, has said the United States is refocusing its military relationship with Saudi Arabia to training Saudi forces rather than stationing large numbers of U.S. troops.
Rumsfeld spoke to U.S. troops in a hanger Tuesday morning after flying from Qatar and landing in the middle of a sandstorm. He thanked them for their role in overthrowing Saddam.
Rashid, the former Iraqi oil minister, was a member of Saddam's Military Industrialization Organization, the group responsible for producing all of Iraq's most lethal weapons. Others members included Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, Iraq's chief liaison with U.N. weapons inspectors, and Amir al-Saadi, Saddam's senior weapons adviser, both of whom are also in custody.
Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said last month that Rashid and his wife would be among "the most interesting persons" for American investigators to interrogate because of their familiarity with a range of Saddam's secret weapons programs.
U.S. military officials have accounted for the last American soldier listed as missing in Iraq. A body found March 24, the day after a convoy was ambushed in southern Iraq, was identified as Army Spc. Edward John Anguiano, 24, of Los Fresnos, Texas.
anti-American protesters, a.k.a. enemy forces.
Local people, including the head of the main hospital in the town, told Reuters that at least 13 people were killed and about 75 wounded when soldiers occupying a school fired on about 200 people staging a peaceful protest against the American presence.
peaceful protests always include AK47s, of course /sarcasm.
Good. These folks need to get the message loud and clear that we won't tolerate this nonsense. Like it or not, they are going to have to play by our rules for a while.
Loyal Republican guard out of uniform.
WASTE THE M*****F*****s!
Now since Iraq had not right to protest prior to US troops presence and since US troops were fired upon the return of fire is not only totally justified but something that is to be encouraged. The CO and the troops should be given a well done.
A nice side benefit is that this will give some future "protestors" something to think about.
Or maybe not so nice benefit, too.
It also shows ne'er do wells and Saddam-hangers-on how to get the Americans to kill civilians. Just sneak up into any group of people and fire on the Americans....then....Al Jazeera gets its martyrs in the return fire.
I'll be happy for our boys when we get them out of that damn hellhole.
They do here in Israel. They bus in the kids from school to toss rocks and then set up snipers behind them. It is the classic Palestinian Parade.
My suggestion is give a public commendation to the Soldiers for supressing enemy fire and if it happens again open up with grenade launchers at the snipers. The rock tossing shields will quickly learn to not stand near the snipers. At that point when you see the rock tossers scatter from a spot it will show you where to find the sniper. I do not care if the weapon is a pea shooter, who ever attacks our troops in hostile territory needs to be mowed down post haste. If you do not, they will attack you with rocks and snipers every day.
If some whiner comes up and complains that 15 "protesters" were killed in the cross fire the commander should say "Is that all?! Damn gun jammed... Result, next day no rock parade. Don't let this turn into a media circus like Israel. Kill the bastards and let allah sort them out. You do not know that that is a rock until it does not go off. The next one may be a grenade. Don't mess around guys.
Didn't you hear the mullah? "They were unarmed, it was a peaceful demonstration", he insisted...and the entire Arab world will believe him, despite the lie. That is why it is hopeless to try and win the hearts and minds of the "Arab street".
Within a few months we will have a "Jenin" on our hands, and the Arabs, U.N., media and Democracts will collude to push the big lie as far as it can get them. Then Americans will truly understand what Israel has been through all these years.
"Members of the 1st Battalion of the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division came upon a group of Iraqis armed with AK-47s last night, " a spokeswoman told Reuters at U.S. war headquarters in Qatar. AK-47s are automatic rifles.
As part of the security initiative, U.S. forces are broadcasting detailed instructions to Baghdad residents. Among the directives: People cannot be in the streets from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.,
Breaking a curfew in a martial law situation risks being shot on sight, In my book it was an unlawfull assembly to begin with.
Funny how that was overlooked in the article from AP.
- General George S. Patton
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