Free Republic

Hunkered down in one of Fallujah's rat-infested factories, US marines gripping M-16 machine guns and smoking cigarettes peered out Friday onto a no-man's land of bullet-riddled cars and abandoned homes. The nervous wisecracks about Kung Fu movies and body odour of the 13 young men are suddenly broken by the crackle of Kalashnikov fire from insurgents who have declared open war on them in this Sunni Muslim bastion. The marines turn and rip machinegun fire across an empty street toward the gunmen hiding in rows of brown concrete houses. The US troops, who are holed up in a number of...

US marines pressing an offensive in this Iraqi town west of Baghdad bombed a mosque in the center of the town Wednesday and killed up to 40 insurgents inside, a marine officer said. The attack came from a jet aircraft at a high angle to minimize the impact, the officer said. "We wanted to kill the people inside," said Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne.

WASHINGTON—With U.S. troops fighting pitched battles on two Iraqi fronts last night, a question dismissed by the White House as naïve last summer has gained increasing currency this spring. Is this George Bush's Vietnam? The charge was made in a Monday speech by one of the country's most polarizing politicians, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, the 42-year veteran of Congress. He struck a chord in this nation and the question was being put to the U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, on network television yesterday while most Americans were still digesting the latest Iraqi battles over their morning coffee. By...