WashPost: Private Guards Repel Attack on US Headquarters

Washington Post ^ | April 6, 2004 | Dana Priest

[mikegi]

An attack by hundreds of Iraqi militia members on the U.S. government's headquarters in Najaf on Sunday was repulsed not by the U.S. military, but by eight commandos from a private security firm, according to sources familiar with the incident.

Before U.S. reinforcements could arrive, the firm, Blackwater Security Consulting, sent in its own helicopters amid an intense firefight to resupply its commandos with ammunition and to ferry out a wounded Marine, the sources said.

[archy]

Damn!!! How did I miss that...
http://www.blackwaterusa.com/aviation/news.html

Three new helocopters added to the Blacwater Aviation family. These "little birds" are headed to the sandbox!!!

one... two....

THREE:

[17th Miss Regt]

It won't be long before ABCCBSNBCMSNBCCNN starts referring to them as the 'vanguard of the proletariat'. Ahh! The good old days!

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

An attack by hundreds of Iraqi militia members on the U.S. government's headquarters in Najaf on Sunday was repulsed...

Before U.S. reinforcements could arrive, the firm, Blackwater Security Consulting, sent in its own helicopters amid an intense firefight to resupply its commandos with ammunition and to ferry out a wounded Marine, the sources said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ping!

[prairiebreeze]

Those callers were probably from DU. They had the talking points down pat as per this blog article.

Democrats Cheer Falluja Outrage

Prairie

[Aquinasfan]

It won't be long before ABCCBSNBCMSNBCCNN starts referring to them as the 'vanguard of the proletariat'.

Correction: CBS, ABS, NBS, MSNBS and CNNBS.

[GrandEagle]

Before U.S. reinforcements could arrive, the firm, Blackwater Security Consulting, sent in its own helicopters amid an intense firefight to resupply its commandos with ammunition and to ferry out a wounded Marine,
Fool me once, shame on you - fool me again, shame on me
These Blackwater guys are not amateurs. I'll bet a repeat of last week doesn't happen again. As "contractors" they are not even limited by any "rules of engagement" that may apply to our troupes.

[finnman69]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4672324/

Blackwater commandos and a U.S. soldier defend the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Najaf.

"With their ammunition nearly gone, a wounded and badly bleeding Marine on the rooftop, and no reinforcement by the U.S. military in the immediate offing, the company sent in helicopters to drop ammunition and pick up the Marine. The identity of the Marine and two other wounded men could not be established, but their blood was still fresh hours later, when the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, and spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt arrived to survey the battle zone.

Without commenting at a news conference yesterday on the role of the Blackwater guards, Kimmitt described what he saw after the fighting ended. "I know on a rooftop yesterday in An Najaf, with a small group of American soldiers and coalition soldiers . . . who had just been through about 3 1/2 hours of combat, I looked in their eyes, there was no crisis. "They knew what they were here for," he continued. "They'd lost three wounded. We were sitting there among the bullet shells -- the bullet casings -- and, frankly, the blood of their comrades, and they were absolutely confident."

During the defense of the authority headquarters, thousands of rounds were fired and hundreds of 40mm grenades shot. Sources who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of Blackwater's work in Iraq reported an unspecified number of casualties among Iraqis.

[Travis McGee]

Not all Blackwater operators are former SEALs, but that is the "standard" they strive to employ. For that matter, not all former SEALs could meet their standards. To say that all of them are cool operators and dead shots would be an understatement. You can bet that they weren't wasting any ammunition while waiting for resupply, and that there were a lot of dead or wounded Iraqi enemies out in front of them. These guys will ONLY make aimed shots, and they will hit far more than they miss.

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[blackie]

Blackwater ~ Bump!

We are winning ~ the bad guys are losing ~ trolls, terrorists, democrats and the mainstream media are sad ~ very sad!

~~ Bush/Cheney 2004 ~~

[PhilDragoo]

Blackwater corrects "failure to communicate"; foes angrily respond by dying.

Except Democrats; lacking nerve to serve with their side (fedayeen, Sadr's Raiders, etc.), Dems cower in safety, whining, "Merthenareeth!"

[B4Ranch]

Good article about civilians.

[Happy2BMe]

"Before U.S. reinforcements could arrive, the firm, Blackwater Security Consulting, sent in its own helicopters amid an intense firefight to resupply its commandos with ammunition and to ferry out a wounded Marine, the sources said."

This one has definitely slipped under the wires - not seen it on any of the national news channels this a.m.

These guys from Blackwater are bonifide heroes and should be recognized accordingly by our gubmint.

[drgnwrks]

Actually the thing they wear is a sheet so they are technically sheet-heads.

[ArrogantBustard]

Thanks, archy! That shape looked awfully familiar.

[jjm2111]

8 of these guys vs. "hundreds" of Iraqis? Talk about professoinalism. I wonder how many of them they got...

[Eva]

There was an article yesterday on Opinion Journal that said that this was the Iraq Tet Offensive. This attack on US headquarters bears that out. The premise of the comparison to the Tet offensive was that the Tet was an act of desperation and actually was a huge tactical defeat for the Communist North Vietnamese, but a strategic defeat for the US war effort because it turned the American public against the war, convincing them that the losses were too great to bear.