A turn of the tide in Iraq?

JDeuce · Mar 23, 2005

Saw these stories over the last few days...and they gave me a slight rise in my optimisim. While there is still the inexhaustible supply of bad news and doomsday predictions, in reality...there has been an uptick in good news for the Allies. Is it just a blip on the radar before things go all to hell, or a sign that things might be actually be changing for the better like I've been saying they would for months?

This is a NY Times story (of all sources) on ordinary Iraqis beginning to fight back against insurgents:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/international/middleeast/22cnd-iraq.html

This is about a large gathering of insurgents who apparently got the sh*t blasted out of them by Iraqi and U.S. forces:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=2&u=/nm/20050323/ts_nm/iraq_dc

This is about the drop in attacks on U.S. troops and rise in attacks on Iraqis and a possible turn from insurgency to sectarian violence:

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11203191.htm

Finally...an insurgent ambush of U.S. convoy backfires and turns into bloodbath for them:

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-21/1111472450300180.xml

I'm sure our Leftist friends like Doc Mullah will proceed to link to dozens of stories pointing to U.S. casualties, mistakes, and other stuff that plays up our opponents and predicts that the U.S. could never possibly win any war, anywhere, ever...and in fact, we're actually the bad guys.

You decide which to believe...

JudgeWapner · Mar 23, 2005

Don't know what to believe. Can only hope things are getting better.

stucco43 · Mar 23, 2005

I know this...the area is a nuclear wasteland and will be for the next 1000 years...and we call this progress..dont fool ourselves and pat ourselves on the back...we have created a situation that will be unliveable for a long time....

stucco43 · Mar 23, 2005

Iraqi Resistance Hits US Base - Kills 11, Takes Humvees

You supporters of this war are sad peices of crap!!!!
<DL><DT>[size=+1]BAGHDAD[/size][size=+1] -- A correspondent of Mafkarat al-Islam in the ar-Rashid area south of Baghdad reported that detachment of about 50 Iraqi Resistance fighters - some of whom, witnesses said, were Iraqi and some fraternal Arab volunteers from outside Iraq - stormed the ar-Rashid camp used by the Americans as their headquarters in the area, called "Kilizan."[/size] <DT>[size=+1][/size] <DT>[size=+1]The Resistance fighters entered the camp by using bayonets to kill three American guards and then cutting through the barbed wire that surrounds the base. Inside, the Resistance fighters attacked three regular Humvees and one armored Humvee, killing eight US troops who were near the vehicles. The Resistance confiscated the four Humvees and drove them out of the American camp, and from there out of the city, taking with them all the weapons, technical equipment, military maps, and communications gear that was in the vehicles.[/size] <DT>[size=+1][/size] <DT>[size=+1]The correspondent wrote that as soon as the Americans learned that the Resistance had infiltrated into their camp, killed their personnel and commandeered four of their vehicles, they sent troops out into the city to carry out a thorough search for the Resistance fighters.[/size] <DT>[size=+1][/size] <DT>[size=+1]In his dispatch posted at 12:20pm Mecca time Friday afternoon, the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent wrote that correspondents for Knight-Ridder, the American Time magazine, and several Arab and international news agencies worked in front of the American camp and the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent was among them. But it was only the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent who relayed the story based in part on sources in the Iraqi Resistance and also on an interview with a member of the US military who did not deny the story but refused to make any statement about it.[/size] <DT>[size=+1][/size] <DT>[size=+1]The correspondent noted that the American camps in the area were more tense than usual, however, each camp carrying out inspections of other camps, trying to find out if the missing vehicles might be among them. The correspondent wrote that the US soldiers and Marines in the southern part of Baghdad for the last six hours had been in a state of nervous doubt and mutual suspicion as a result of the break in.[/size] <DT>[size=+1][/size] <DT>[size=+1]Witnesses resident in the ar-Rashid area said that they saw the Resistance fighters rushing out of the city with the four captured vehicles which were being driven by men whose faces were covered. A witness said that the vehicles were indeed being driven by Resistance fighters and that their driving was "somewhat bad."[/size] <DT>[size=+1][/size] <DT>[size=+1]The correspondent called the Resistance operation the boldest since the US occupation. He noted that the area to the south of Baghdad is heavily over grown with thickets and with farmland and that 40 US spy planes and 30 helicopters at the time of reporting were crisscrossing the skies above in search of the captured vehicles. It is believed that a helicopter carrying a high-ranking US commander landed a short while before inside the camp into which the Resistance was able to penetrate.[/size] <DT>[size=+1][/size] <DT>[size=+1]"Friendly fire" nervous US soldiers kill four US Marines in ar-Rashid area following Resistance break-in at American base.[/size] <DT>[size=+1][/size] <DT>[size=+1]Four American troops were killed by so-called "friendly fire" in the ar-Rashid area of southern Baghdad at 4pm Friday afternoon local time.[/size] <DT>[size=+1][/size] <DT>[size=+1]The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported local witnesses as saying that one Humvee was heading from the west of the city towards the center at very high speed when a US column spotted the vehicle as they came out from a side street and into the path of the racing Humvee. Troops in the column opened very intense fire on the Humvee, in the belief that the vehicle was one of those taken in a Resistance break in to the ar-Rashid base Friday morning. The soldiers in the US column believed that the speeding Humvee was one of the captured vehicles being used in a martyrdom attack on themselves, hence their fierce response.[/size] <DT>[size=+1][/size] <DT>[size=+1]Witnesses said that the incident left four American troops dead and the Humvee destroyed. They said that after opening fire on the Humvee, the Americans in the column then saw three more Humvees pull out from a side street behind the first. They then realized that they had shot up part of a US Marine patrol in the area.[/size] <DT>[size=+1][/size] <DT>[size=+1]The correspondent received confirmation of the incident from a member of the puppet police, who said that the seizure of the four Humvees by the Resistance Friday morning had put the whole US army in Iraq in a state of confusion.[/size] <DT>[size=+1][/size] <DT>[size=+1]A member of the US-run Iraqi puppet army told Mafkarat al-Islam that after the break in on the base, the base authorities had begun checking the IDs of their troops when they enter the camp, stopping all the armored and unarmored Humvees to search them, in fear that one of them might be one of the vehicles commandeered by the Resistance coming back on a mission of death.[/size] <DT>[size=+1][/size] <DT>[size=+1]http://www.freearabvoice.org/Iraq/Report/report226.htm[/size]
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JinnRikki · Mar 23, 2005

We could have caught the guy responsible for 3000 American deaths, but I guess Saddam was more important.

Document: Bin Laden Evaded U.S. Forces

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By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON - A terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was a commander for Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (news - web sites) in the 1980s and helped the al-Qaida leader escape his mountain hide-out at Tora Bora in 2001, according to a U.S. government document.

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The document, provided to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information request, says the unidentified detainee "assisted in the escape of Osama bin Laden from Tora Bora." It is the first definitive statement from the Pentagon (news - web sites) that bin Laden was at Tora Bora and evaded U.S. pursuers.

The detainee is not identified by name or nationality. He is described as being "associated with" al-Qaida and having called for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States.

In an indication that he might be a higher-level operative, the document says he "had bodyguards" and collaborated with regional al-Qaida leadership. "The detainee was one of Osama bin Laden's commanders during the Soviet jihad," it says, referring to the holy war against Soviet occupiers.

The events at Tora Bora were a point of contention during last year's presidential race, and Bush as well as Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) asserted that commanders did not know whether bin Laden was there when U.S. and allied Afghan forces attacked the area in December 2001.

Cheney said last Oct. 26 that Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, had "stated repeatedly it was not at all certain that bin Laden was in Tora Bora. He might have been there or in Pakistan or even Kashmir (news - web sites)," the Indian-controlled Himalayan region.

Franks, now retired, wrote in an opinion column in The New York Times last Oct. 19, "We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001." He added that intelligence assessments of his location varied, but bin Laden was "never within our grasp."

On several occasions in the days following publication of that column, Bush cited it on the campaign trail as evidence that bin Laden could have been in any of several countries in December 2001. "That's what Tommy Franks, who knew what he's talking about, said," Bush said on Oct. 27.

Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), the Democratic presidential nominee, lambasted Bush during the campaign for having missed a chance to capture or kill bin Laden at Tora Bora, a mountainous area along the Pakistan border that became al-Qaida's last stand in Afghanistan. U.S. warplanes bombarded the area in December 2001, and Franks had Afghan soldiers lead the ground assault, backed by several thousand U.S. ground troops, including Special Forces, in a cave-to-cave search.

The newly revealed statement is contained in a document the Pentagon calls a "summary of evidence" against one of 558 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. It was provided to the AP this week.

The evidence was summarized last December 14 for a Guantanamo Bay hearing to determine whether the prisoner was correctly held as an "enemy combatant."

The assertion about his efforts and bin Laden's escape is made as a statement of fact; it does not indicate how the information was obtained.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Daryl Borgquist, a spokesman for the Combatant Status Review Board for which the document was prepared, said Tuesday he could not elaborate on the Tora Bora statement, or its sources, because the statement was derived from classified information.

Bin Laden, whose al-Qaida terrorist organization was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, had operated from Afghanistan until the U.S. invasion in October 2001.

He remains at large. For many months, officials have said they believe bin Laden probably is hiding in the Afghan-Pakistan border region, although last week Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to endorse that view, saying bin Laden's whereabouts were unknown.

In mid-December 2001, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, told reporters there had been "indicators" of bin Laden's presence at Tora Bora in early December.

"And now indicators are not there," Stufflebeem said. "So maybe he still is there, maybe he was killed, or maybe he's left."

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Among documents stating the U.S. government's evidence against other detainees at Guantanamo Bay is a September 2004 assertion that an unidentified detainee, described as a member of al-Qaida, had traveled from the United States to Afghanistan in November 2001 — two months after the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

The document does not elaborate on the detainee's U.S. connection, but says he arrived in Afghanistan via Bahrain and Iran (news - web sites). He was "present at Tora Bora," crossed the Afghan border into Pakistan in December 2001, and surrendered to Pakistani authorities, the document says.

The detainee also was arrested by Saudi authorities for questioning in the 1996 terrorist bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 members of the U.S. Air Force, the document says.