Posted on 05/03/2004 4:53:43 PM PDT by elfman2
Freepers have been hotly debating whether politicians or military commanders made the decision to cancel the Fallujahn offensive.
Today Fox News Lives Jon Scott (I believe) interviewed Jim Michaels (USA Today Reporter) just back from Fallujah. I transcribed the relevant portion of the interview. In summary he said that the Marines were told to stop the attack by Administrator Bremer under pressure from the Iraqi Governing Council.
MICHAELS No one [in the Marines] was happy with the cease fire. The American contractors were killed.
They got the order to go in, as we know, on a big offensive. They were in the offensive for whatever, seven or eight days and boom the politicians said no, hold back, theres too many casualties.
The governing council, the Iraqi governing council, was really upset. They went to Mr. Bremer. Mr. Bremer in turn sort a put in the order to hold back.
While they were in this cease fire meanwhile the insurgents were in there, the insurgents were in there rearming re-supplying you know, taking advantage of of the lull in activities, so they were in a real bind here, and they really had no choice, they say, except to come up with the idea for a Fallujah Brigade.
Otherwise these guys would still be in there and the ceasefire would still be going on, and these talks that they were having were going nowhere. The sheiks (sp?) were just kind a sipping tea with coalition officials and were nowhere, It was just getting nowhere at all.
SCOTT So very quickly Jim, Do the bad folks in Fallujah think that theyve won?
MICHAELS They do indeed! Theyre running around the past couple of days, celebrating and saying you know that theyve fought things to a stand still. Theyre really taking a propaganda victory out of this.
Theyre really running around saying, you know, they fought the American forces to a standstill. You know theyre pushing it for all its worth.
SCOTT So how does that effect their overall strategy to win the hearts and minds of the the Iraqis - the fact that theyre claiming a victory in Fallujah?
MICHAELS Well pol It doesnt help. And its one of the biggest fears that the Marines have is that a week, 10 days down the road, this things going to continue to snowball, and and these guys are going to claim victory, and it presents a BIG propaganda problem for the American forces there. It its a big risk.
"The Marines said that they had no choice, that they were in a stand off and the ceasefire whas going nowhere."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
There is no substitute for victory. If we don't have the stomach or the resolve to finish what we started then we have absolutely no business being there.
We displayed weakness. Exactly what Osama Bin Laden says - "The United States is nothing but a paper tiger." - Militant muslims worldwide are celebrating now the victory in Fallujah.
Pious moderate muslims now in many countries now question if 'divene intervention' played a role in Fallujah. How else can David beat Goliath?
"Najaf is now protected and shielded from the infidels by the hand of Allah. It is the infidels who fear Allah and that is why they are fearful to attack Najaf."
The war is over. We lost.
Epatguy, we have not lost, we won. Uday and Qsay are dead, Saddam is in chains, and we've scoured the country for WMDs that can be given to terrorists.
The objective was to oust Saddam and secure his WMD programs, not to conquer Iraq and make them a colony.
We need to stabilize the situation, give the Iraqis a fighting chance to start a democracy, then we can pull out and GO HOME.
That's all the "confirmation" there is right? Do you see any other?
OK?
I tried to be serious earlier: Bremer IS in charge, I'll add that there are no quotes from any commanding officer...
but this thread is obviously only going to be good for laughs.
Any more of this, and I'd have to believe you are a Kerry supporter.
How come the outrage is always against our side? And our people in charge always back off and condemn themelves for things like this?
Where are you hearing the 'outrage' from around the world when our soldiers and contractors are being killed while trying to help the Iraqis?
How about when the bodies were dragged and burned? Sure WE were outraged - but now they are going crazy over the poor mistreated insurgents?
There was a time our country thought that spying was not a nice thing to do.
It's time to grow up and admit we are fighting a war. Too bad what everyone else thinks. We were the ones attacked and it's up to us to do something about it because the weeping willies won't!!
Sure they did, and I sincerely hope we'll resume the offensive with MOAB's and a big-ass Arclight mission about 10 minutes after Dan Rather and Sy Hersh HALO into Fallujah to get the straight skinny from the jihadi @ssholes who are dancing in the street.
But we need to know when our own top guys are less than "performant" in their functions. Taking names for later. Which includes the money runners back home who watched the World Trade Center drop on 3000 people from their own office windows, but wouldn't back off their own tax-rebate agenda.
We need to expand our active-duty base and take some of the strain off the Guard units that have been pulling rear-echelon duty in Iraq and flying big hours in the logistical train. We need to bite the bullet and bulk up. Dubya's old man put half a million guys into Kuwait, fully equipped and fully backed with naval gunfire-support and all-arms air assets that Bush II couldn't scrape together if he had to. It's time to admit that this was a bad time to downsize and "restructure".
Did you really expect to see any? Last I checked our military worked on an ethos of doing what you are told, not questioning to a reporter. Which is a very good thing I might add.
Hey, we showed them in Fallujah. We played 20 year old heavy metal music, AC/DC, inflicted irreparable psychological scars on their tender psyches.
In the prisons we seem to have had some sort of Marquis De Sade MappleThorpe SadoDens. I don't why people are so worked up about it. Just some horsin' around. /sarc
My area of expertise is that I have lived and worked in a Muslim country for over 20 years. I speak, read and write their language. I understand what they think and how they view this.
You can be well assured that I am not simply going to rely on the liberal media or CNN. In many cases I get my information straight from the source, and that is muslims themselves.
You were an hour and 20 min. late with your post -- he was already doing it on McNeil/Smartass this evening. Fortunately, the other guy on the interview was a Marine JAG officer who knew his stuff and could redirect Hersh when he predictably wanted to climb the ladder and put a nekkid-people interrogation guidance memo on Bush's desk.
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